Unequal justice.

A MORE bleak assessment of the criminal justice system can scarcely be imagined. On Monday, the Islamabad High Court described the criminal justice system in its jurisdiction as 'alarming and abysmal... [It] is definitely not serving its purpose; rather it... appears to have become a source of grave injustice'. These remarks were included in a strongly worded judgement by Chief Justice Athar Minallah at the end of proceedings that saw the accused in seven different murder cases acquitted. Most of the individuals had already spent around 10 years each behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Their ordeal is a stark illustration of how the system fails to protect the fundamental rights to life, liberty and due process. Justice Minallah listed several of its more problematic aspects, among them the fatally flawed police investigations that either result in unsafe convictions or allow perpetrators of even serious crimes to go scot-free. Matters in the rest of the country are no different, and the chief justice correctly observed that this shambolic state of affairs has been a very long time in the making. It is 'a reflection of the apathy, neglect and mis-governance of the past seven decades and no organ of the state can absolve itself from being responsible.'

Former Supreme Court chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa had also at the beginning of his tenure last year declared his intention to address the undue delays in judicial determination of cases and tackle the scourge of fake witnesses and false testimonies. Setting up model courts...