Aristotle defined fairness as a principle that
“equals should be treated equally and unequal’s unequally”. Since all humans
are equal in the eyes of the law, this implies that they have a birth
right to be judged fairly. Fairness and justice are substitutes and one
cannot be present without the other.
On one hand well regulated and structured
Constitution of 1973 aims the law in Pakistan to be fair and uniform so that justice
is done universally on equivalent basis in all courts, unfortunately this form of
justice is not approachable by all the people of Pakistan, proving to be unfair to many, especially those
residing in villages. Hence as an alternative, Jirgas are practiced in such
areas.
People of such villages prefer Jirga over the
government courts because Jirga provides an inexpensive and straight forward system
of justice as compared to court of law. In Jirga, elder members of the
community come forward voluntarily to resolve the issues of the conflicted
parties bearing all the costs themselves, in order to gain blessings of God.
Victims do not have to incur any cost to refer their case to jirga. Whereas, on
the other hand if people want to attain justice through court of law they have
to incur a considerable amount of cost in terms of hiring lawyers who could
defy their case in court. Also, as compared to the courts, the Jirga system is smooth
and has less delays as compared to the courts of Pakistan which lag behind due to the
mismanagement. 
2 comments:
In theory, all human are equal before law. In practice, this is not the case. Hence why subnational forms of justice - like the jirga system - attempt to provide a form of justice to those who have not received it.
Although Jirga is a fast and cheap way of attaining justice but We also need to bring into limelight the irrational decisions that the jirga system have taken which have resulted in quite a high number of casualties.
Post a Comment