ISLAMABAD: In an attempt to minimise the backlog of 57,000 cases, the Supreme Court disposed of 257 cases in a week - from Sept 25 to Sept 30.

A senior counsel, who wished not to be named, said the conduct of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa in running the Supreme Court reflected as if he was more serious in rebuilding the image of the apex court that had gone down considerably due to the perception of a divided house in the past.

It also showed as if CJP seemed not interested in taking revenge or pursuing vengeance because of the bitter past he underwent against the backdrop of a presidential reference coupled with a vilification campaign against him.

Rather, the CJP is going an extra mile to bring the much-needed reforms by involving senior judges in all important matters like fixation of cases before different benches and by holding regular meetings with the bar associations and law officers etc, he said.

Senior counsel says it seems new CJP is serious in rebuilding image of apex court

The CJP held the much-needed full court meeting soon after assuming the office and then constituted the full court Supreme Court bench to hear the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023.

The first ever case he took up as CJP, Justice Isa also allowed live streaming of the entire proceedings and then approved the appointment of Hayat Ali Shah, a retired district and sessions judge, as the director general of the Federal Judicial Academy (FJA) for a period of one year on contractual basis, a matter stuck up for quite some time.

Justice Isa made it clear that the days of seeking adjournments of cases had long gone.

The caution was for the counsel representing different litigants to come prepared instead of seeking adjournments on one pretext or the other.

And if a case has to be postponed at the end of hearing, the CJP seeks the consent of each party.

The CJP’s presence on the bench while hearing cases is often sprinkled with wit and humour that sometimes makes the onlookers amused.

In one of the hearings, the additional advocate general Khyber Pakhtunkhwa termed the effort “a rare art.”

At the same time, when a lawyer is indulging in arguments that seems wasting of court’s time, CJP sometimes visibly seems vexed and even seen facepalmed. Still he tries to keep his calm while realising that he is sitting at the highest constitutional office as the top adjudicator.

However, the practice of imposing cost to counsel for not rendering proper assistance to the court has made a number of lawyers unhappy who are frustrated with the trend.

It is visible that the members on the bench are more conversant with the facts of the case than the counsel who often fail to answer when asked what the question of law involved in the matter.

The purpose of imposing cost is just to give a loud and clear message that waste of public time will not be tolerated; therefore, the counsel should be well conversant with their cases.

For professional lawyers, this is not a problem, but it is more worrisome for those who are more interested in lawyers’ politics, commented a senior lawyer.

Once CJP asked a counsel, “What is the art of advocacy,” and then went on to explain that it was the art to make complicated things simple and not otherwise.

The hearings are often punctuated with humour as in a case CJP cracked a joke while seeing a counsel by asking, “Since when you became all ‘white’ at this very young age.” The lawyer said he had crossed 45 years.

In a different case, a lawyer pleaded that he wanted to argue the case by narrating complete facts before the court that will take some time. the CJP retorted: “The night is young and we sit through the night.”

While dictating an order, the CJP asked senior counsel Maulvi Anwarul Haq whether Mr is written before Maulvi, also recalling usually we don’t write ‘Mr’ before names which starts with Qazi.

After finishing each case, CJP dictates the order then and there no matter how long the roster of the bench is on that day.

It is apparent that while fixing cases the CJP seems more interested in giving priority to ordinary litigants instead of hearing cases having political undertones.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2023