Despite Budget Increase for Prosecution Department, Balochistan’s
Under-Staffed Courts Fail to Provide Justice to Citizens Who Wait Years for
their Day in Court
Asghar Sanjrani is finally free
after the six years’ imprisonment. He was wrongly convicted of trying to
assassinate Irfan Baloch, who died of unrelated causes three years after that
conviction. Sanjarani remained imprisoned until his request for appeal was reopened
in March this year. He had been imprisoned for a crime that the court finally
determined he did not commit.
Sanjrani’s case is only one among
thousands of pending cases, both big and small, that await justice, but few
receive their day in court.
Staff shortages create long delays
A key reason is there are simply not enough judges to go around.
There are not enough qualified candidates to fill the vacancies that exist, let
alone to expand and reduce pressure on the chronically overstretched
system.
The
additional advocate general Mir Shay Haq Baloch said that there are only eleven
judges in the High Court of Balochistan and none assigned to the Turbat and
Sibbi benches. Instead, every month, two of the eleven high court judges are
sent to handle the cases in Turbat and Sibbi Benches. It depends on the number
of cases they need to handle so mostly they stay for a few days and maximum to
a week.
The
number of judges in the High Court of Balochistan is only 11, that means there
is hardly a single judge per million population which is against 50 judges for
every million citizens in developed countries and 35-40 judges per million
citizens in some developing countries.
Even with enough judges to try
cases, there wouldn’t be enough public prosecutors to argue cases. Both
shortages are due in part to the very manner in which judges, prosecutors and
attorneys are appointed. In Balochistan, the qualifications for judges, prosecutors
and attorneys are very high while capacity is quite low.
While government is expecting more
capacity, justice seekers like Sanjari wait years for their day in court. So
far, out of every ten positions in the courts of Balochistan four are vacant.
The number of prosecutor in Balochistan is 28 per million people, which is
against 300 lawyers per million people in developed countries.
“Since there are fewer public
prosecutors, their workload is much more but pay ranges from Rs. 70,000-100,000
which is far less than the work they do. And with the job, pressure and restrictions
don’t leave their way, for instance the public prosecutors are restricted and
are permitted limited social interactions and so on. Therefore, most lawyers in
Balochistan prefer private practice rather than restricting themselves with
unending judicial processes of public prosecution.” A private lawyer practicing
in Quetta, advocate Kifiyatullah Qazi expalianed.
He further went on to say that
although private lawyers do face financial crises sometimes too when there are
no cases to defend, yet they are not bound to any kind of restrictions. They
are free to handle cases of their choice.
High profile criminal crimes, in
many court systems are “fast tracked”. This means the case is prioritized over
other pending cases and is fast tracked in order to ensure speedy justice and
to avoid potentially innocent suspects languishing in jail awaiting trial.
However, in the case of Balochistan or as a whole in Pakistan, the cases that
fast-tracked are only those that catch the attention of media outlets.
As the national media often forgets
Balochistan, very few cases are fast tracked in the provincial justice system.
Hence the number of pending cases continues to grow.
“Waiting for the trail for six
years was as hard for me as it was for my family members. They were
economically venerable and dependent. The only work I often felt courts of
Balochistan do: is “discussion” and “delaying” of cases, rather than deciding
the cases.” Sanjrani shared while reflecting his experiences with the
provincial justice system.
Life without rule of law
Rule of law is a legal principle through which
law governs a nation, not “individual decisions” that destroy hundreds of lives
at one. In a society where there is no rule of law, there is no public safety.
From 2014-2016, according to the Balochistan Police official site 1025 murder cases were registered, 19 cases of
highway robbery, 1873 cases of other vehicle crimes and 69 cases of kidnapping
for ransom were registered.
On the other hand, according to South Asian Terrorist Portal so far in different incidents of suicide
attacks in various part of Balochistan, from 2003-2017, 845 people were killed
and more than 1638 were injured. And most of these attacks were in the
provincial capital Quetta, making it one of the most insecure cities in the
region.
The constitution of Pakistan declares “safety”
a fundamental right for every citizen. Hence, maintaining peace and ensuring
security not only for justice providers but for all citizens is the responsibility
of the government and law enforcement agencies.
Absence of rule of law makes people
venerable of anomic and lawless situations where no one cares what happens with
the citizens and their lives. Institutions become weaker when laws are unable to protect citizens. Similar is
the case of Balochistan. The delayed justice has declined the quality of social
institutions, government departments and negatively affected the lives of
citizens.
Bottlenecks in the System
In a justice system with a huge
bottleneck created by staff shortages, one of the biggest administrative errors
is to allow the police to flood the system with cases best resolved out of
court.
“One of the contributing factors
for a huge number of cases is also the registration of First Information Report
(FIR) by police across Balochistan for cases that do not necessarily need to
undergo lengthy legal processes.” Advocate Kifatullah Qazi shared.
Several cases do not necessarily
need to be admitted in court, yet they are and so they keep increasing the
number of already pending cases. On the other hand, once a FIR is registered,
the admission of case in court takes time.
It has several times been seen that
cases which could be solved in one session were not decided, such as the Sanjrani’s
case that remained pending for six years even after the death of the convict
the case kept going. Such delays are either because of the minimum time a judge
has and huge number of cases he/she has to hear. For instance, a judge
who is assigned for 3-4 days to handle cases in Turbat or Sibbi benches can
hardly give enough time to the cases already piled up, let alone the new cases.
It has also been noticed that
several prosecutors make intentional effort to stretch out and delay the cases
just so they have something to do. All together these factors make things
complicated for justice seekers in Baluchistan, a province where population is
the lowest as compared to the other provinces and where justice would not have
been a far distant dream if only the government and the justice providers had
made it easier.
Security a looming fear:
For lawyers, judges, defendants and complainants, seeking justice
in Balochistan is an inherently dangerous activity.
The 2017 Human Rights Report by Human Rights Watch reveals that
although in 2016, Pakistan had fewer incidents of militant violence than
previous years, scores of people were killed. Amongst the people killed in 2016
are a long list of lawyers from Balochistan.
On June 8, 2016, the
young principal of University of Balochistan Law College, Barrister Amanullah
Achakzai, was shot dead by unidentified assailants. Like so many of the cases
in Balochistan, this case remains unsolved.
Exactly two months
later, on August 8, an
extremist group killed the president of Balochistan
Bar Association (BBA), Bilal Anwar Kasi. The message was clear: justice has no
place in Balochistan. Hundreds of lawyers rallied for a peaceful protest in the
emergency section of Civil Hospital Quetta, condemning the attack when a
suicide bomb detonated, killing 70 people at once, including 55 lawyers.
“I have witnessed the 8 August’s incident and can understand the
importance of security measures that had disturbed the entire provincial
justice system. The High Court closed for two months after the attack last year
and then for three months justice providers continued protesting every two days
in a week, just so the government ensured security and held the perpetrators
accountable,” said advocate Changis Baloch, member of Quetta Bar Association
and a survivor of the attack.
Fear and continuous closure of court is another factor for the
increased number of pending cases. With the recent elections for Bar
Associations, the senior lawyers are making an effort to encourage the new
lawyers to continue practicing despite the insecurity.
“So far things have not normalized, but they are getting better
with time,” he shared. “We recently had election for Quetta Bar association on
8th April and had the election for Balochistan Bar Association on 28th April.”
A problem money can’t solve:
Despite an influx of funding over
the last three years, the provincial prosecution department and law and order
department have failed to deliver the needed push to restart the justice system
and reverse the climate of impunity and fear.
In 2016, before the attacks on justice providers, the provincial
law and order department planned a security campaign, “Safe City Project” in
two of the sensitive cities of Balochsitan: Gwadar and Quetta. Under the
project, the government planned to adopt an array of potential counterterrorism
procedures, which included heavy security, installation of CC Cameras and
automatic number plate readers.
The project was worth of estimated Rs. 10 billion. Some of the
funds were disbursed as well but the project was not implemented. As a
consequence, people face violent attacks, insecurity with government failing to
provide protection.
No solution in sight
Besides a hiring spree, practical suggestions have been made to
bring back law and order to the region. In response to the immense challenges
justice system is facing, the government has to hire more public prosecutors
and judges so that the pending cases get an opportunity to undergo trail. On
the other hand, the requirements for justice providers need to be lowered in
order to get their adequate number.
For the security, government usually rushes through measures in
the immediate aftermath of tragic attacks, which past experience has shown
creates a serious risk that exceptional measures will become norms without
sufficient consideration of their long-term impact..
The name of the person in the first paragraph has been changed to protect his identity.
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