Islamabad:
The president of the Association of the Supreme Bar (SCBA), Mian Rauf Atta, and the Supreme Court’s main lawyer Hafiz Ehsan Khokhar submitted proposals to modify the rules of the Supreme Court to facilitate the people.
The proposals include fixing deadlines so that lawyers of both parties have arguments, the decision of each case filed before the Supreme Court in a year, the publication of judicial orders on the same day as the hearings and the publication of reserved judgments within one month.
All 12 -page proposals were submitted to the Supreme Court registrar. References to the judicial systems of Turkiye, China, France, Germany and Norway were also included in the project.
The proposals have called to withdraw the increase in justice costs, claiming that the Supreme Court is not a income -generating authority and that higher costs contradict article 37 d) of the Constitution, which guarantees cheap and fast justice.
They noted that only minimum costs are billed in Norway and Germany, and that access to justice should be available for all citizens, not only those who are financially strong. In the United Kingdom and India, they said, the courts are even seated in the evening to hear urgent cases.
It has been suggested that each appeal placed in the Supreme Court should be decided within one year, while civil calls should be concluded in the six months. Once a case is set in the list of causes, it should not be canceled, except in extraordinary circumstances or emergencies. If a case is struck off, it must be automatically rewarded the next working day.
They also recommended that short prescriptions be issued on the same day of hearings, while detailed judgments should be published within one month. The calls filed before the Supreme Court should be fixed for hearing within two months, and all cases should be eliminated within one year.
The SCBA also proposed that the organization of responsibility for the judges – the SJC – to have an open procedure. He also recommended that any complaint filed against a judge be decided within six months.
