Judicial dicta, in almost all common law countries of note, have spurred the progress and development of the fundamental rights discourse. Even in the most squalid of governments—e.g. apartheid South Africa and caste segregated India—the courts of law and equity have been the final bastion, towards which a subjugated members of society have turned their eyes for a defence of their personal and collective freedoms. When the frontiers of free speech were threatened with a new wave of restrictive legislation in the United States, it was Justice Brenan who rallied against censorship. When the contours of fundamental rights were attacked by the suspicion of cold war frenzy, it was Justice Harlan’s jeremiad on Jim Crow that came to the defence of the persecuted. This, and countless other examples, demonstrate that the arc of jurisprudence, developed by free-thinking judges, has always bent towards justice, and banished the darkness of sinister ages through the light and glean of progression.
Sadly, in Pakistan, this trend of progressive jurisprudence—especially in the district and trial courts—has been conspicuously missing from our judicial pronouncements over the past several decades.
While it is true that, from time to time, in select cases, a few members of the superior judiciary have made bold attempts to break the shackles of mechanical dispute resolution. However, at the district level, our Courts have largely failed to develop and expand the ambit of domestic jurisprudence, to keep pace with international trends. Consequently, our trial Courts have simply become an institution that mechanically applies the black letter law and precedent, merely as a tool of dispute resolution, as opposed to breaking new grounds in the development and progression of the fundamental rights discourse.
While the root cause of this problem can be traced to a variety of issues—including sub-standard education in our law schools, defects in the process of selecting and appointing qualified district court judges, and overwhelming backlog of pending cases (leaving little time for development of law)—a major contributing factor towards scarce developments of modern jurisprudence is the lack of continuing education and training for members of the district (and superior) judiciary.
The issue of continuing judicial education, especially for the district judiciary, is a relatively easier fix, and one that falls squarely under the domain of the respective Provincial and Federal Judicial Academies.
To this end, the Punjab Judicial Academy (PJA) has made some attempts at introducing continuing educational curricula for district court judges. However, for the most part, such initiatives have lacked the requisite intent and vigor to transform the persistent and soporific approach to dispute resolution in our trial courts.
The PJA has conducted periodic conferences and introduced continuing education courses for the use of ‘information technology’, and ‘alternate dispute resolution’ methodologies. While such initiatives, by the PJA, service as an admirable first step towards raising the standard of our District Judiciary (as well as Superior Judiciary?), it must be remembered that it is only a first step. And the real work, in terms of finding our way back to jurisprudential grounds, must be accomplished through consistent and deliberate policy-making by members of the superior judiciary—the real custodians of the respective judicial academies.
From a structural perspective, the Punjab Judicial Academy (PJA), formed under the Punjab Judicial Academy Act, 2007 (Act), is responsible for “imparting training to the judicial officers and court personnel with a view to develop their capacity, professional competency and ethical standards for efficient dispensation of justice”. Working under the control and supervision of the honourable Lahore High Court, PJA is responsible for imparting “training”, developing “skills”, conducting “examinations”, promoting skills of “judicial reasoning” and “ethical values” (section 4 of Act), in a manner that is “at par with international standards” (section 5 of Act). And a Board, headed by the honourable Chief Justice of LHC, working through the Director General of PJA, is responsible for laying down the “policy and program” for PJA, and for evaluating its “performance” (section 8 of Act).
Such a structural paradigm is more than sufficient for the PJA, and other similar judicial academies, to shake out of their respective slumbers and embrace the job at hand.
It is time for JPA, with the help of domestic and international experts, to introduce a rigorous program for the development of judicial acumen and expertise, among members of the district judiciary. To this end, it will be important to evolve a progressive curriculum, in step with international best practices, that helps expand the jurisprudential frontiers of our district judiciary, by allowing them to peek into comparative legal doctrines being developed across the world.
It will also be important to introduce members of our district judiciary to a wide range of experts who do not belong to the field of law. Only a curriculum of comparative studies—one that includes history, religion, psychology, philosophy, international business and global commercial transactions—would allow our district judges to better deliberate upon and resolve conflicts of the modern age. And in this regard, a collaboration with international experts from disparate jurisdictions, would help build synergies that benefit the empire of our domestic law.
Conducting classes, and holding seminars, however, will not do the trick by itself. The respective Judicial Academies, and members of the superior judiciary, must take steps to ensure the implementation of a rigorous and ongoing evaluation program that monitors the adaptation of fresh knowledge-base with the ranks of our worthy district judges.
This process is less daunting than it sounds. The availability of resources—financial as well as intellectual—is not the primary hindrance that stands in the path of this progression. What has been lacking, all through our judicial history, is a deliberate and concerted effort by the superior Courts to implement these measures.
This culture of apathy towards judicial education must turn a new page. It is time that all those who have a stake in a just society—doctors, engineers, lawyers, social scientists, and government officials—step forth and lend some fraction of our efforts to the improvement of judicial education in Pakistan. Only in this way can we ensure that our children inherit a project of justice that is anchored to the shores of progress.