The courts of Pakistan disposed of around 2.3 million cases during the second half of 2023. But it was insufficient to dent its massive backlog of cases, which registered a 3.9% increase.
The Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan recently released its bi-annual report of judicial statistics from July to December 2023. The report contains comprehensive information about the cases filed and those disposed of by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Federal Shariat Court, all the high courts and the district judiciary.
As per the report, during the second half of 2023, which saw a change of guard at the Supreme Court, the overall pendency of cases has increased by 3.9%, reaching a staggering 2.26 million cases.
The report showed that 82% of all pending cases (1.86 million) are at the district judiciary level, while 18% of the remaining 18% (0.39 million cases) are in the upper tier, which includes the Supreme Court, the Federal Shariat Court, and the high courts.
According to the report, 2.38 million new cases were filed during the second half of last year. The courts managed to resolve 2.30 million of them, leaving a deficit of 0.08 million cases. Despite disposing of such a significant number of cases, the backlog of pending cases grew due to the high influx of new cases.
The report said that around 81% of all cases pending before the courts were civil in nature, while the remaining 19% were criminal cases.
On the other hand, at the level of the district judiciary, civil cases constituted 64% of all pending cases, while the remaining 36% comprised criminal cases.