PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Yahya Afridi on Saturday said the judiciary would leave no stone unturned to further improve its image as an institution and that efforts would be made to alleviate the problems faced by the poor litigants.

He was addressing a daylong Second District and Sessions Judges Conference in Nathiagali area of Abbottabad.

The organisers said the event was meant to sensitise participants to the progress on the proposed creation of District Judiciary Secretariat in the high court and get feedback from the district judges.

While appreciating the achievements made so far by the team working for the reforms in judiciary being undertaken by the team under the leadership of the high court’s registrar, the chief justice said the reforms were a continues process and that there was always room for improvement in every system.

Chairs conference on judicial reforms at district level

He said the judiciary was committed to creating an enabling environment for litigants and judicial officers to work in a befitting manner to address the problems faced by poor litigants.

The chief justice thanked the high court’s registrar and his team and DSJs for their efforts in making the conference a success and said further deliberations would be made to realise the vision and dream he had seen for the institution of vibrant judiciary.

The conference was a follow-up to the initiative taken by the chief justice for reforming the district judiciary to reach out to the people by strengthening it and improving its service delivery mechanism.

The conference was chaired by the chief justice along with Senior Puisne Judge Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and three judges of the Peshawar High Court.

Besides all district and sessions judges (DSJs), ex-cadre DSJs, additional DSJs, senior civil judges and civil judges also attended the conference.

Earlier, DSJ Anees Badsha Bukhari gave a presentation on the proposed structure of the District Judiciary Secretariat to be established on the premises of the Peshawar High Court.

The concept revolved around human resource management, financial management, monitoring and looking after the welfare of the judicial officers.

The presentation was followed by question and answer session which was attended to by a panel consisting of the registrar, legal draftsman, in charge of the National Judicial Policy Making Committee at high court, director general of the KP Judicial Academy and consultant retired DSJ Hayat Ali Shah.

PHC registrar Saleem Khan highlighted the need for the establishment of DJS, which was about optimal utilisation of human resource and improvement in services delivery.

The next session was about the feedback received by legal draftsman from all judicial officers in the districts on 60 questions formulated by him for creation of DJS, promotion policy for judicial officers, recruitment policy, promotion prospectus, capacity building, discipline, evaluation of performance and controlling office for Judicial Officers in the district.

The session was also followed by a question and answer round.

The next session was presented by the KP Judicial Academy DG, who explained to the forum about the proposed rules, performance evaluation report and recruitment prospects, which he had formulated after consulting the existing rules in consultation with judicial officers in the districts.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2017