Editoral-Long trials and escapes

UNDERTRIAL prisoners handcuffed or in fetters and further hooked to the belt of escorting policemen have been escaping from the Karachi City Courts’ compound for as long as one can remember. Such escapes are much more frequent and daring now than previously.

The June 19 escape won’t be the last but it is unlikely that the escapes yet to happen will cast the law and order administration in a worse light or cause greater panic.

Just imagine, four deadly sectarian suspects guarded by only two constables loitering around the court compound hours after the hearing was over and remaining in touch with their rescuers on cellphones. The casualness of it all has justifiably given rise to suspicions of collusion between the police (at whatever level) and the rescuers belonging to a banned militant organisation.

The jail and police superintendents would surely tell us that they could spare no more than two men to guard the four terrorists and that they did not have the means to arrange for a separate vehicle to carry them to court. But they would never tell us the number of armed men and vehicles that guard and escort their commanders and political bosses. The brunt of the escape inquiry, quite obviously, shall have to be borne by the surviving policemen.

Such is the history of official enquiries instituted to determine culpability. This one will drag on as did the inquires in the previous escapes. Never mind that. Millions have been spent, the UN has been involved and two years have gone by. But Benazir Bhutto’s murder inquiry is hanging fire.

Criminal trials last for years but the rate of conviction is less than 10 per cent. Before a trial proceeds the complainant, his witnesses and counsel, the state prosecutor, the accused and their counsel all have to be there in court together.

Trials are routinely put off if the summons are not served, the counsels are busy in higher courts, the presiding officer falls ill or, more commonly, if the undertrial prisoners are not brought from jail because either the escort force has another security/protocol assignment or the aging vehicle bringing the prisoners has stalled.

It is a rare occasion when all these elements fall in line and a witness or two are examined before the court time runs out and then one has to wait for another fortuitous day when everybody is able to assemble.

Longwinded trials, usually ending in acquittal, are the chief cause of discontent in the Frontier regions where the jirgas would decide even murder cases in a session or two before Pakistan’s penal laws applied there.

Of all the factors delaying trials, the most common is the inability, or unwillingness, of the jail or police authorities (it is their joint responsibility) to bring prisoners to court.

If the transportation of prisoners were to be eliminated from the process not only would trials proceed expeditiously, the hazard of prisoners escaping would also lessen. It would also put an end to the abuse of official authority in a variety of ways. For instance, it is not uncommon for a resourceful prisoner to make a diversion on the return journey to spend time with his friends or family.

It was primarily with this consideration in view that this writer had proposed to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2002, when it launched its $350m Access-to-Justice programme for Pakistan, that criminal courts and jails, wherever possible, should be located contiguous to each other inside a single walled compound.

As an example, it appears eminently feasible to build all the needed courtrooms next to Karachi’s centrally situated Central Jail. The vast jail area can be curtailed to accommodate only undertrial prisoners and the jail at Landhi can be expanded to accommodate all the convicts and other detainees who are not required to be produced before the court at short intervals.

Under the ADB programme a large building for courts was constructed in Malir which has indeed reduced congestion in the courts but the requirement of police personnel and vans to transport the prisoners, if at all, has increased. Trials through video link between the jail and court which were envisaged in the programme and attempted in Lahore, it is believed, also ran into legal difficulties and had to be abandoned.Mention must be made of the ADB’s contribution to the streamlining of training of civil judges and judicial magistrates and in improving their service conditions. Now they are believed to be paid twice as much as their counterparts in the executive or developmental cadres. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been indulgent enough to provide cars to them. Society must not forgive them if they still shirk their work or indulge in corruption — which some indeed do.

Though the Access-to-Justice programme has since been wound up, the feasibility of bringing jails and criminal courts together still deserves to be examined. Karachi’s City Courts then should be able to house all the civil, special and appellate courts that lie scattered all over the city in improvised buildings. Besides solving the escort and conveyance problem it would be of great convenience to litigants and lawyers.If this kind of arrangement makes criminal trials expeditious and, at the same time, reduces the chances of dangerous criminals running away or being rescued, investment and disruption in implementing it would have been amply rewarded.

In the long run it would also save money and time and, hopefully, reduce bribery. All said, a mystery remains. Why did the escapees of June 19 have to be tried in the City Courts when even robbers and kidnappers are often tried in a makeshift courtroom inside the Central Jail?

kunwaridris@hotmail.com

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