THE lawyers` communities of Faisalabad and Sargodha divisions have been agitating for about a decade for establishment of high court benches in their respective division headquarters. However, the higher judiciary has not accepted this demand so far.
The following are cogent reasons in favour of establishing additional high court benches: a. Overcrowding in big cities creates serious social problems. To check concentration of population in big cities, governments all over the world try to extend necessities of life to all areas. There is a trend among lawyers to migrate to Lahore from other districts. The establishment of additional high court benches will arrest this tendency.
b. Decentralisation is the need of the hour. As far as possible, it is essential that people be provided administrative, financial, judicial and all other facilities, closer to their home towns.
c. The fee that the advocates charge at the LHC is so high that 75pc of litigants simply cannot afford it. At the divisional headquarters, the people will be able to engage lawyers at around one third of the fee.
d. The people of Sargodha and Faisalabad divisions will be spared the agony of a long journey.
