Islamabad:
The Supreme Court noted that it could not remain indifferent to the systemic discomfort of delay in the arbitration of affairs, adding that delayed justice is not simply refused justice – it is often the justice extinguished.
In a four -page verdict on an appeal against a high court order in an auction case, the SC deplored that the petitioner’s call in the case was waiting for the high court for ten years, when it took three years for the SC to resumed the case.
The verdict written by judge Syed Mansoor Ali Shah said that the question that has engaged the attention of the Court was not limited to the validity of the auction; Rather, it has spread to know if significant relief could now be granted after the fourteen years. “Even if the petitioner’s complaint had merit, the sands of time almost eroded its power,” he said.
The verdict said that it exceeds Cavil that the delay in judgment affairs by the courts at any level of the corrode judicial system The confidence of the public in the judiciary, undermines the rule of law and by disproportionately disproportionately and vulnerable which cannot afford the cost of prolonged dispute.
“The delay in arbitration results in severe macroeconomic and societal consequences: it dissuades investments,” makes the contracts illusory and weakens the institutional legitimacy of the judiciary.
“The credibility of a judicial system is not only based in the fairness of its decisions, but also on the speed with which these decisions are made. The question is not simply administrative, it is constitutional”.
He said that the right to access justice is guaranteed by articles 4, 9 and 10A of the Constitution and that it encompasses the right to a just and appropriate trial. Delay which makes an remedy ineffective or a good illusory amount to a refusal of regular procedure. Justice, to be real, must be both fair and timely.
The verdict said that more than 2.2 million cases were currently pending before the courts of Pakistan, including around 55,941 cases before the SC alone despite the number of judges. These figures, he said, are not abstract-they represent the disputes suspended in time.
He declared that the delay in arbitration is not simply a by-product of the congestion of the file or the ineffectiveness at the level of the branch; This is a deeper structural challenge of judicial governance.
