Judiciary separated but not free yet
Absence of judicial secretariat holds it back

Ashutosh Sarkar

The country's judicial system saw no tangible improvement towards making its independence functional during the last one-year of Awami League (AL)-led government.

Legal experts and government sources point at the delay in setting up a judicial secretariat as the reason.

The judiciary had been separated from the executive branch of government in November 2007, through an ordinance by the immediate past caretaker government, which was ratified by the current parliament last year.

Since the official separation, the Supreme Court (SC) has been the controlling authority of the entire judiciary.

But due to the absence of the judicial secretariat, the law ministry is still making all arrangements for appointments, transfers, and promotions of lower court judges -- albeit with final approval from the apex court, according to ministry sources.

The experts said the practice is hampering full independence of the judiciary, and against the spirit of the separation.

After assuming power, the AL-led government said it would very soon constitute a secretariat under the SC, which is yet to be realised.

Law Minister Shafique Ahmed, however told The Daily Star recently, "We have amended the Criminal Procedure Code as per the Supreme Court directives in order to make effective the separation of judiciary from the executive."

He said the present government is sincere about constituting an independent secretariat under the SC.

"I have talked to the chief justice about it. The government is arranging the logistics," he said adding that the secretariat will be formed as soon as the logistics are in place. But he did not say how long the process will take, when asked.

Dr Shahdeen Malik said since the administrative institutions for exercising SC's sole authority over the entire judiciary are not in place, the apex court does not seem to have effective administrative control over the subordinate judiciary.

To make the separation meaningful, the SC first has to expand its administrative capacity, he said.

Personnel of the SC Registrar's Office should also be substantially increased, he added.

Dr M Zahir told The Daily Star that disposal of cases has slowed down since government lawyers are taking too long to schedule case hearings, and as the judges are also giving them time, resulting in a growing backlog of pending cases causing much sufferings for litigants.

Those incidents are against the spirit of establishing rule of law and justice in the society, he said.

He however added that the present government increased the number of judges of the Appellate and High Court divisions of the SC.

Zahir said there should be a time limit for scheduling case hearings.

The law minister said the government initiated a process for introducing an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system for out of court settlements of both civil and criminal cases through compromises between litigating parties.

He said if the system is launched, cases will be disposed of more speedily and at a minimum cost, easing the backlog.