I believe the emergence of the Jirga system is inevitable
especially in communities where the state is non-existent; it is the people’s
response to a lengthy, expensive judicial process. I disagree with the view
that Jirgas should be completely banned, rather I believe there should be a
slow and steady process to bring Jirga system under the existing legal fold.
Total abolishment will not only be met with resistance but a vacuum will also
have been created in place of the Jirga system.
The only feasible solution I believe is to initiate a
process of uniformising Jirgas across the country, respected tribal elders as
well as legal experts should be taken aboard to devise laws, which maintain the
spirit and essence of the constitution of Pakistan while respecting tribal
culture. Certain inhuman practices
should be completely stopped, e.g. Karo kari, Swara. Special telephone hotlines
should be set up, giving people the ability to report any unjust ruling, this
would allow the state to keep a close watch on the Jirga members.
Although this approach may not seem ideal, it is one that we
will have to accept if we are ever to bring the entire country under some sort
of system approved by the state.
2 comments:
I agree to some extent to what you have written about the Jirga system as most of the other students have shown really hard criticism against the Jirga system in their posts. It's not appropriate to put a ban on the Jirga system completely as it is deeply rooted in our society and not only in tribal areas but also in other provinces like Punjab where it takes the form of 'Panchayat'. We cannot get rid of such old systems of values at once. A society's development be it any kind of development takes several years. And as our 'Judicial' system has not been so efficient during the course of our history so instead of running in courts for justice for years people have used these means for instant decisions on different conflicts or disputes. In some cases these Panchayats and Jirgas have played positive roles as well but the issues that get highlighted on our media are usually the ones that have some sort of negative connotations attached to them. For example the Panchayats might sometimes also resolve disputes between big landlords and the smaller ones which if taken to court might favor the bigger landlords because of the amount of resources that they could use to 'buy justice' as is usually the case in our country.
Ah, a compromise solution! Bringing the jirga under the aegis of the state - very smart idea and you are the only student who has put forth such a proposal. I think this is a good idea and perhaps it could then mitigate the abuses of the jirga system.
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