KARACHI: In April, lawyers in Karachi stayed away from courts on at least nine days. Add to this weekends and the April 4 holiday to mark Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death anniversary and almost half the month was a court holiday. And when lawyers are on strike, the courts cannot function properly even if the judges are present.

The reasons for lawyers staying away from work in April were as varied as the killing of their colleagues and the demise of senior lawyers and judges. But not all the bar associations were always on the same page on the necessity of boycotting court proceedings and in some cases certain courts functioned while others did not.

Litigants and lawyers both suffer when work is suspended, litigants because their cases get even more delayed than usual, and lawyers because their workload keeps piling. According to a court official, cases not heard on any particular day are put off to next day in addition to the large number of cases already fixed for that day.

Regular strikes add to the many factors that delay court proceedings — overburdened courts, absent judges and missing prosecution witnesses being the most common complaints. Strikes add to the backlog of cases, which is already severe, says the head of Litigation and Research at the non-profit Legal Aid Office, Mohammad Akmal Wasim. According to him, under-trial prisoners are the worst affected. The delays undermine their right to a fair trial as central to the notion of a fair trial is a swiftly-settled trial.

Take Karachi’s district south as an example. It has a total of 35 judges with approximately 50 cases scheduled for each court every day. When there is an unscheduled day off, the number of cases on the following day doubles. It is unlikely that a court can hear 180 cases a day.

And those litigants whose cases are being heard in the High Courts or the Supreme Court of Pakistan but whose cities do not have appellate branches of these courts travel long distances to attend hearings.

As for the under-trial prisoners, once their court hearings are delayed due to a strike, they have to wait to receive the next date for their hearing, which can be anywhere from one to two weeks away.

While the more established lawyers have to deal with increasing workloads due to the frequent unexpected days off, the newer members of the legal fraternity, who are often dealing with relatively minor applications for which they are paid on the spot, lose out on a day’s earnings. No wonder then that the “silent majority” of lawyers opposes strikes, says president of the Karachi Bar Association, Salahuddin Ahmed, adding that the KBA in general “has a stance against strikes” and is working with other bar associations to develop a more effective form of protest against frequent targeted attacks on lawyers.

Sindh High Court Bar Association Secretary Asim Iqbal, however, thinks that strikes do sometimes manage to achieve important goals. He mentions the March 2014 kidnapping of senior lawyer Talmiz Burney, who, Iqbal says, was soon restored to his family when lawyers pressured the government by threatening to strike till Burney’s recovery. “How else do we show our grievances, anger and protest?” he asks, referring to the targeting of lawyers, while adding that they are also filing petitions to “get the police in order”.

Mr Ahmed is less convinced of the efficacy of boycotting work. When it comes to occasions such as marking the death of senior lawyers and judges, he feels that their memory is better served through holding references rather than staying away from work. He referred to the call to suspend work on April 21 in order to commemorate the death of Sukkur-based lawyer Maqbool Ahmed Awan, explaining that the city courts continued to work till 12 noon after which a reference was held.

However, he too feels that “targeted killings is a slightly different issue,” and emphasises the need to “launch a protest”.

But even in such cases, Mr Ahmed feels that strikes are not most effective way of achieving the end of safety for lawyers.

“Strikes should be undertaken as a last resort,” he says, citing cases such as the March 2014 attack at the courts in Islamabad or the targeting of lawyers as cases when there is unanimity in the decision to strike. Other than the costs to litigants and lawyers, “if you overuse one form to protest, it loses its efficacy,” he says.

The practice of strikes increased during the lawyers’ movement and that means of protest has now become a “part of the culture,” Mr Ahmed feels. “It was developed for a very specific purpose, to show lack of acceptance of PCO judges.”

Last year, Advocate Wakil Ahmed Qureshi filed a constitutional petition in the Sindh High Court against the strikes and court boycotts by lawyers, arguing that the practice is not only against professional conduct but also violates the fundamental rights of litigants by obstructing access to justice.