PESHAWAR, June 12: In an effort to save time of courts and provide speedy and inexpensive justice to the people, the Directorate of Prosecution of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has detected around 6,000 cases unfit for judicial procedure.
“Some cases lack evidence and these are not fit for further proceedings. They just lead to long procedure and waste of money and time of the parties involved,” Director-General Prosecution Mohammad Arif Khattak told Dawn. He said that courts had also agreed with the advice of the prosecution regarding those cases.
“Such weak cases just waste time of the courts and money of litigants,” said Mr Khattak while explaining the mechanism adopted by Directorate of Prosecution for analysing cases that could be fit or unfit for trial after he took charge in June last year.
According to official data 147,788 FIRs were registered during 2012 in the province that has around 368 courts. Officials said that the number of public prosecutors working in the province was only 262 and work environment was not very conducive for them.
The situation often led to lengthy court proceedings and waste of time and resources, they said.
“We set in place a monitoring system and a reference and research cell to come up with the ways to ensure inexpensive and speedy justice as well as reduce burden of cases on courts,” said Mr Khattak.
He said that steps were taken in the light of the directives issued by the provincial cabinet to adopt mechanism to improve coordination with the police to investigate and timely collect evidence and ensure that the Prosecution Act 2005 was implemented.
After taking immediate steps, the conviction rate in terrorism cases jumped from three per cent to 10 per cent. In magistrate courts the conviction rate is 76 per cent while in sessions courts it is 30 per cent.
“The remaining cases are either settled out of court or accused are absconders and evidence is preserved in such cases,” the official said.
The director-general prosecution, who claims that coordination between police and prosecution has improved, still feels that working environment for public prosecutors is not conducive. Not only the number of public prosecutors is less in all the 25 districts of the province than the sanctioned posts, they also don’t have the facilities like judicial or police officers.
“Some public prosecutors have one-room office in a district and in some districts even that is not available,” said a prosecution officer.
Mr Khattak also admits that shortage of staff is an issue and many public prosecutors are overburdened. In such a situation the directorate has no option but to engage ‘special public prosecutors’ or private counsels on daily wages to overcome the deficiency of staff.
Earlier special public prosecutors were engaged for Rs500 daily wages but recently it has been enhanced to Rs1,200 per day. The criteria for hiring a panel of special public prosecutors has also been reviewed and written test, interview and demonstration are made requirements for hiring special public prosecutors to improve their performance.
The job of public prosecutor is as risky and important as that of a police investigator or judge in delivering justice but often they remain ignored when it comes to acknowledgement or provision of facilities to them.
Many public prosecutors still don’t have facilities like official residence, transport or fuel charges and even telephone.
Unlike police and judiciary, despite the sensitive nature of his job even the director-general prosecution has not been provided with an official residence. The public prosecutors, who have been pursuing many terrorism and criminal cases, are doing this risky job without much facilitation.
“I don’t think fear can stop anyone or any government institution from doing work but the working environment needs some improvement,” said Mr Khattak.
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