ABBOTTABAD:Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Mussarat Hilali Monday said bringing improvement in the bar and justice system in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was her top priority.
Addressing the Abbottabad District Bar Association, she said if the judiciary and the lawyers fraternity remained on the same page then her tenure as the PHC chief justice would be a golden era.
It was an honour for her to become the PHC CJ and she wanted do something good for the judiciary and the lawyers, she added.
Referring to the increasing population of the KP province, the chief justice said after the merger of the Federally Adminsitered Tribal Areas, the KP’s population had become equal to that of the Sindh province, but number of judges in the province were proportionally half. She requested the Pakistan Bar Council to help increase the number of judges so that the public could be provided timely justice.
As regards the judicial reforms, CJ Mussarat Hilali said the number of additional judges and family court judges were low, while the other courts were currently working with full capacity. Efforts were being made to increase the number of those judges as well, she added.
She advised the judges presiding over the family courts to better get the families reconciled instead of issuing divorce decrees.
Musarat Hilali directed the judges must attend their courts in uniform, saying except tea breaks, their absence from the court would not be acceptable.
She said she was working to improve the conditions of prisoners through undisclosed visits to jails. She had directed the district judges to visit jails so that the cases of prisoners, who had been incarcerated for years, could be heard and decided.
The CJ said all judges, including herself, would have to do justice with responsibly. Benches had been set up to identify the issues regarding the judiciary so the same could be sorted out, she added
Earlier, Justice Abdul Shakoor Khan, in his brief address, said the Abbottabad Bar had produced prominent judges and lawyers who were not only respected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but also in the entire country.
District Bar President Sardar Basharat, Justice Kamran Hyat Midkhel, Justice Ajaz Ahmad Khan, President of High Court Bar Abbottabad Bench Jawed Tanoli, Additional Registrar, Deputy Attorney General, Deputy Advocate General, Senior Judges, Additional and Session Judges, Haripur, Mansehra, and Havelian bar members, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council members, Vice Chairman Pakistan Bar Council, and former President of the Supreme Court Bar, Fazal Haq Abbasi, including a large number of lawyers attended the meeting.