1.9 million backlog court cases, the highest in Pakistan
January 18, 2019
Pakistan's new Chief Justice, Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa will be faced with the herculean task of clearing the country’s largest backlog of court cases.
There are an estimated 1.9 million cases, pending from previous years, in over 250 lower, special and superior courts, according to estimated official figures collected from the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan. Of these, at least 40,871 are pending in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In 2013, the backlog was 18,000, which then grew to 38, 539 in 2018.
Moreover, some 1,458,845 court cases are awaiting a hearing in the district judiciary and 130,746 in special courts/tribunals.
The pendency in the districts of Punjab is 1,095,542, in Sindh 101,095, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 209,984, Balochistan 13,969 and Islamabad 38,291.
The magnitude of the problem is even more jarring, considering that these cases have to be cleared by the 4,100-strong judiciary. Pakistan’s population, as per a 2017 census, is upward to 207 million, which means that there is one judge for 48,838 people.
