‘Delay in justice triggers lawlessness’

ISLAMABAD - Delays in the justice delivery system trigger lawlessness, Pakistan’s chief justice said Saturday, noting that civilised society cannot survive without the rule of law.

“Lawyers are the guardians of the constitution and delays in justice (delivery) triggers lawlessness,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary said at a lawyers’ enrolment function here.

Holding that the decisive factor between a civilised and barbaric society is the rule of law, he added: “If there is no rule of law there would be no civilised society,” Online news agency reported.

Cautioning lawyers to avoid frivolous litigation, Chaudhary said: “The bar and the bench are equally responsible to provide justice to masses.”

“It is the principal jurisdiction of the court to interpret the constitution. The system of the judiciary is acting on one principle, and that is the rule of law,” he added.

Chaudhry had been sacked after he and the entire Supreme Court bench had refused to take a fresh oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order then president Pervez Musharraf had promulgated along with the emergency Nov 3, 2007.

He was reinstated March 21 last year following a bruising laywer’s long march to Islamabad after President Asif Ali Zardari, who had succeeded Musharraf in 2008, backpedalled on a promise made by the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party that the sacked judges would be restored.

Since then, the Supreme Court has been playing an increasingly proactive role, first declaring the emergency as unconstitutional and then revoking the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that had granted amnesty to some 250 politicians, bureaucrats and retired military officers charged with graft.

Zardari and his slain wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, were among those who benefited from the NRO, promulgated by Musharraf in October 2007 and which enabled them to return home from exile.

Zardari now faces the very real possibility of being jailed as the Supreme Court has also ordered that the cases that were closed due to the NRO be revived.