Judiciary Reform Commission to focus on reducing litigation costs, disposing piled-up cases

Judiciary Reform Commission Chairman Justice Shah Abu Naeem Mominur Rahman today said easing the plight of the commoners is a crucial point in reformation of the judiciary and the commission’s prime focus is to reduce court fees and case backlogs.

“We have planned out an initial guideline of our work progress, and it will focus on less court fees and more active judicial system to reduce case backlogs,” he said while briefing journalists after the commission’s second meeting at the Judicial Administration Training Institute (JATI) at city’s Ramna area.

“The commission is yet to receive a specified guideline from the interim government, but our preliminary discussion and study has reached the decision to concentrate on the well-being of the people,” said the commission chairman.

Justice Mominur Rahman said that the commission will hold discussion with the stakeholders in lower courts, media, judiciary, Supreme Court and District Court Bar Associations in future and submit recommendations to the government.

While replying to the queries of journalists, the committee chairman said, “It is practically impossible to ‘fully-reform’ the judiciary within the 90-days time limit that the interim government gave us, as the commission is only a recommending authority.

But in co-ordination with the government, the legislation and administration sectors must work with the judiciary, which is also the disciplinary agency of the state, for the actual transformation.”

He said that issues like policy making on the appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and the trust crisis in judicial system as referred by the Chief Justice himself earlier, were discussed and further discussion will be held in this regard.

The committee is scheduled to hold its third meeting on Monday next.
The government through a gazette notification on October 3 constituted the Judiciary Reform Commission.

The members of the commission are – retired High Court judges Justice Emdadul Haque and Justice Farid Ahmed Shibli; former district and sessions judge and former registrar general of Bangladesh Supreme Court Syed Aminul Islam, former district and sessions judge Masdar Hossain, senior SC lawyer Tanim Hussain Shaon, associate professor of law department at Dhaka University Kazi Mahfuzul Haque Supan, and a student representative is yet to be selected by the government. (BSS)