KARACHI: Vuklagardi was a termed coined to point out a class of lawyers community who became outrageous and angry whenever any-thing occurs which displeases them. The same gender of our men in black and white coats are angry again. This time their anger was over model courts functioning in all parts of the country on a novel initiative by incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa who instead of following the foot print of his predecessor and treading on the path of “judicial activisim” decided to put his own house i.e judiciary in order.
With a resolve to establish a system of speedy justice, he after detailed discussions with all the four provincial chief justices decided to establish model courts which were ordered to hold day to proceedings in case in hand and without allowing adjournment to any side decide the same expeditiously. In just two weeks thousands of cases were decided by these model courts. A ray of light was seen at the end of the darkest tunnel and people were re-assured that now judiciary will be reformed, the justice system of the country would be re-modeled and back log of thousands of cases already existing and multiplying on daily basis would be cleared. The experiment was to replicated in all other courts working in remotest areas of the country saving “millions of work hours” as identified by Chief Justice of Pakistan.
The move must have been welcome by the lawyers community who always and in every gathering or occassion where a provincial chief justice or CJP was invited as chief guest used to request for overhauling of the judiciary, made appeals for expeditious disposal of cases and repeat the old maxim “justice delayed is justice denied”. Now when a serious non-political, sincere effort guided by a strong will to revolutionize the judicial system, make it efficient, delivery based, decision oriented and saving the time of litigants from both contesting sides may be state and a criminal or civil dispute between family, the lawyers are losing cool, they are not only objecting to the new system but have decided to launch a full scale campaign. They have announced a protest at Supreme Court, Islamabad. The opposition is even from some very senior lawyers too and indicates the importance of dialogue between the stake holders. The bar and the bench must at unison to save the novel and first ever serious effort in the judicial history of Pakistan to from falling victim to petty differences and instead a broader dialogue must be initiated to make the plan a success. This would help millions of litigants to have speedy justice. Lawyers are a gentle men class and have played due role to save judiciary, democracy and rendered sacrifices like the one they gave during movement when former CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was removed by Military Dictator General Pervez Musharraf. They are the custodians of legal system and we people of Pakistan expects positive role from this educated professional lot and not “vukla gardi”.