ABOUT six years ago, I had expressed my views through a letter, `Judiciary` (Nov 27, 2017), on the role of judiciary in matters that needed to be decided by the politicians in parliament, and on issues that fell in the realm of people at the helm of affairs and are needed to be decided by the administrative machinery.

Thingshave notchangedin allthese years.Infact, our politicians have become more dependent on the judiciary for sorting their almost daily politicalgrievances.Instead of discussing issues in parliament and finding solutions, petitions are filed in the already heavily-burdened courts to resolve constitutionaldisputes.

Matters like interpreting various Articles of the Constitution, and issues, such as who has the authority to call elections under the law, are brought before the bench. Why do we then need a legislature at all? Besides, judicial activism is not a term unheard of in Pakistan.

So, would it not be beneficial to establish `constitutional courts` where issues related tointerpretation, protection and enforcement of the Constitution can be addressed? Many countries have such exclusive and specialised courts that are vested with the authority to rule on constitutional matters, and decide whether the laws that are challenged are in conflictwith constitutionally established rules, regulations, rights and freedoms, among severalotherthings.

Setting up such courts will go a long way in lessening the burden of the existing civil courts, which are heavily burdened with a lot of pending cases.

The Supreme Court alone has a backlogofthousands ofcases.

In its existing format, the system is causingnothingbutinconvenience to the ordinary litigants on a daily basis.

Khaled Islamabad