Attorney-General for Pakistan

ADDRESS ADDRESS By Mr. Ashtar Ausaf Ali, Attorney-General for Pakistan Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr. Anwar Zaheer Jamali; Honourable Senior Punise Judge Mr. Justice Mian Saqib Nisar; Honourable Judges of the Supreme Court; President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Mr. All Zafar; Vice Chairman Bar Council Dr. Farogh Naseem; Advocates-General and Prosecutors-General of the Provinces; Senior Advocates of the Supreme of Court of Pakistan, respected members of the Bar, friends, ladies and gentlemen. Lord Tennyson once said, 'Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, "It will be happier." We inaugurate, indeed we celebrate, the coming of this judicial year, not for ritual's sake, but because it is a fount of all our hopes - it is a place from where our dreams and aspirations spring. Yet the road ahead is long and, I daresay, difficult. We commence the new year with our first speeches, but I cannot but help think of another gentleman's last ever speech. Justice Kayani, while addressing the High Court Bar Association over half a century ago said, 'The principal thing, however, is that I have no desire to live these thirty-five years of service over again, so full of struggle they have been, so painful in retrospect.' These are heartbreaking words, made doubly ironic for the reason that when we remember Justice Kayani from 1962, we do not remember his travails, his hurt. We remember instead his wit, his courage, his refusal to bow down to those that spurned the Constitution - what he called 'a magnificent structure'. Yet in all these years, we have been struggling to remake the house the likes of Kayanis and Corneliuses once built: a time when jurists and lawyers were self-deprecating in their success, acute in their intellect, correct in their approach and most important of all, comfortable in their integrity. Indeed today, when we look around us at the challenges to lawyers and judges within the legal system, we are gripped with dread -we see the piles of undecided cases pending for decades, we hear the tumor in an advocate's voice arguing a case he has neither prepared nor understood, and we feel the anguish of the average citizen over laws that are complex and justice elusive. And it is time we turn this around. As I related to the Supreme Court Bar Association earlier this year, several initiatives are being taken to broaden that most fundamental of needs: easy access to justice. There is need to bring about structural change, most especially when it comes to matters of practice and procedure. We also need to reduce our countless judicial tiers, and intermingling of judicial offices. I believe there is a need to create a new Legal Service of Pakistan and raise standards of legal education. Centres of continuing legal education need to be established to serve as an incubating ground for incoming talent at all levels of the legal sphere. Each and every one of these initiatives addresses the most obvious of our challenges: delay in the system and, by extension, ensuring that the ends of justice are met. To look to broader aspirations, for the legal and constitutional literacy of each citizen, as is their right, the Government is ensuring that there be translations of statute and all major laws - as well as legal issues of public interest - into Urdu and regional languages for greater awareness. We hope that the cumulative effect of these initiatives shall be greater than their various parts, but as both the government and the Bar have understood, there is far more work to be done - and it pertains to ourselves. It is said that when one dreams, one dialogues with aspects of oneself: similarly, when we dream together of a new legal order, we must realize it is premised on a dialogue together - a conversation with all stakeholders. It is time we established a mechanism of institutional dialogue; to bring about the sort of exchange of ideas that can transform our justice delivery system. Why this has not happened thus far - why we have not led the change we have so wished to see - is because we have not yet begun the business of exchanging ideas. I regret to say there is no great conversation; no concept of a meaningful dialogue between the three great pillars of the state. We need to know that a free exchange of ideas can never compromise the independence or separation of State institutions - rather, it can only develop a greater understanding of themselves, and each other. In the same spirit, let us commence the year with this initiative: round-table seminars where law enforcers, investigators and prosecutors sit side by side with judges, jail officials, and the various functionaries that comprise our legal system. For too long, we have cocooned ourselves from one another: it is time now for a collective soul-search, to put together concrete benchmarks for ensuring a vibrant, expeditious, and above all, accessible justice system. Though we shall doubtless retain our respective independence, If our goal is the same, and we wish to leave a better world for our children, we must begin thinking together and building together. To that end, I also look to this Honourable Bench. It is after all this very bench, and its illustrious predecessor-members of the recent past, that have affirmed the independence of the judiciary as an ideal that could and would be had in this life. It is in the light of their successful struggle that we slowly but surely move towards a new order, where the Constitution is paramount, and access to justice a reality. Ladies and gentlemen, before I conclude, I would want every one of us to pause for a moment, and remember the month that has passed. Though it breaks our hearts, let us understand that - were we living in unexceptional times - Mr. Bilal Anwar Kasi would have been in attendance right now. An entire generation of lawyers from Quetta - fathers, brothers and sons - would have been in attendance right now. But for what happened on 8 August, they would be the vanguard of our new legal order. They are not, and we must - every one of us - understand what is at stake. That those that target our children can also target what the legal community most strives for: truth, equity, and the rule of law. Either we move forward and ensure access to justice, or we fall by the wayside, as we have for too long. Let us usher in the new year with a new resolve, and a new legal order. Allah ta'Allah humara sab ka hami-o-nasir ho. Pakistan paindabad.