Pak SC proposes video-conferencing for hearing of cases
Islamabad, April 17 (IANS) Confronted with adjournment of cases on a daily basis as well as difficulties faced by litigants in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Pakistan Supreme Court has proposed adopting social network apps to overcome regular postponement of cases.
On Thursday, Justice Qazi Faez Isa, while presiding over a two-judge bench during the hearing of a case and facing a similar problem with the absence of a counsel, suggested the use of social network applications, such as Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram or any other suitable video-conferencing platform, to deal with the situation, reports Dawn news.
Justice Isa asked Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Sayyed Qalbe Hassan to help resolve the issue.
The SCBA president acknowledged by stating that he was receiving calls on a daily basis from different counsel that they were not in a position to appear in the court on account of the pandemic.
According to him, even those who are willing to come from outstation have no place to stay as the Supreme Court hostel complex and most hotels in Rawalpindi and Islamabad were closed.
Justice Isa also proposed that each courtroom of the apex court should be provided with a WiFi-connected mobile phone, the number of which should be mentioned in the cause list as well as at the Supreme Court’s website.
Besides applications like Skype, WhatsApp or Telegram, any other suitable video-conferencing platform be installed in the Supreme Court mobile phone whereas counsel arguing a case be asked to also install the same application in their mobile phones.
–IANS
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