HAVING suggested to the army that its national agenda be kept short, I was not planning to add to that advice. But meanwhile a long conversation with a senior serving army officer gave me much food for thought.

He agreed that the army had no panacea for the country's many ills and should not stay any longer than necessary. "However", he continued. 'You have suggested that the revival of the economy should be one of the two main points on our agenda, and have gone on to say that law and order is a prerequisite to rescuing the economy. But how can law and order be restored when criminals accused of the most vicious offences are arrested and released on bail; when cases take years to come to court, and after an initial hearing, the case then drags on forever because the litigants are permitted to use the most blatant dilatory tactics; and when allegations of corruption are rife?"

He went on to argue that virtually every area of our lives is affected by the judiciary, and the public perception is that there is one set of laws for the poor, and another one for the rich and the powerful. So, he continued, how can any problem be solved without first carrying out a reform of the judicial system? "Accountability is a major public demand, but after nearly three years, Asif Zardari has neither been convicted nor acquitted of any of the charges he is facing; the one case in which he was convicted is now under appeal in the Supreme Court. Most ordinary cases, especially those involving property, drag on for years."

I have often thought about this problem, as I am sure many other Pakistanis have. Take the revolting case of judicial killings as an example. Scores of prisoners accused of violent crimes have been allegedly gunned down in cold blood by the police in crudely fabricated "encounters." This is a common occurrence in Sindh and Punjab and has been regularly criticized by human rights activists and the media here and abroad. And yet this gruesome practice persists as a normal policing tool.

When I ask my friends in the police service why they don't put an end to this evil, they point out that some alleged killers have been arrested as many as twenty times, only to be let off on bail each time. This is even truer of terrorists when their political parties and patrons threaten judges. According to a senior police officer, if these alleged criminals had not met their sordid ends, but been released yet again on bail, Pakistan would have been a more violent country than it already is.

Talk to the judges and you get a different story. For starters, most police investigations are limited to torturing a suspect and extorting a confession. Forensic science is largely a mystery to the police, and fingerprinting, a technique developed a century ago, is still not widely used here. Photographic evidence and the intricacies of detection have yet to be introduced. According to the police, they don't get enough funds. But surely they could have made a start. And far too often, a police case rests on the sworn testimony of police witnesses. These worthies appear in scores of different cases, perjuring themselves in each one. Often they appear before the same judge who, although forced to accept this tainted testimony despite his reservations, gives the suspect the benefit of the doubt.

Then there is the tendency among our people to go to court for anything and everything. During Benazir Bhutto's last stint, a gentleman moved the Lahore High Court to challenge the government's appointment of Mr Wajid Shamsul Hasan as our high commissioner to the United Kingdom. In his petition, he put forward the plea that he was better qualified for that post. The court accepted this petition for a formal hearing, and the Foreign Office was directed to defend its appointment. Now the same person has moved a similar plea against this government's nominee for the post, Akbar S. Ahmad. One would have imagined that with such a huge backlog of pending cases, our courts would be stricter in deciding which cases they will hear.

Our lawyers are in the habit of accepting far more cases than they can handle with the result that they are often supposed to be in two different courts on the same day. Since even our legal wizards cannot manage this feat, they use their connections and a small part of their (usually tax-free) legal fees to persuade court registrars to change the date of their appearance. This causes an endless prolongation of cases. Instead of cracking down on this practice, our judiciary has accepted it as a part of the system. Often, lawyers are not prepared and thus ask the judge for a postponement. Even more often, it is in the litigant's interest to postpone a decision indefinitely and this will be his brief to his lawyer.

When he was presiding over an anti-terrorist court, my military interlocutor said he did not allow any postponement for any reason, and if a defendant's lawyer did not appear for any reason, he was given the option of accepting a court-appointed and officially paid lawyer. If this approach were made mandatory, the entire machinery would be speeded up.

Another problem with the system is the shortage of judges at different levels. Time and again, successive chief justices have drawn the executive's attention to this gap. And this brings us to the issue of judicial independence. Much has been written about this vexing question, and nobody I know has been against this concept in principle. But its implementation has been beyond the abilities and will of successive governments. It is true that with the criteria for appointment of judges to the higher judiciary now established as legal precedent, many anomalies have been removed. Nevertheless, it is not certain that independence will guarantee that the system will be more efficient and honest.

Living as we do in a society where merit is at a discount and sifarish is essential for advancement, it is difficult to see how members of the judiciary can be totally cut off from this system. Transfers and promotions are often in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians, as are jobs for sons and sons-in-law. And when you ask for favours, you have to be prepared to do them as well.

In this brief article, I have described just the tip of the iceberg. The question is who will reform the system? Politicians in power have no incentive to bring about sweeping changes. But if the army sets about doing it, they will be unable to return to the barracks in my lifetime. We should remember what the Duke of Wellington said when asked to give his opinion on a proposed reform: "Reform? Reform? Aren't things bad enough already?"