Judiciary of Pakistan

Pakistan has two classes of courts: the superior (or higher) judiciary and the subordinate (or lower) judiciary. The superior judiciary is composed of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Federal Shariat Court and five High Courts, with the Supreme Court at the apex. There is a High Court for each of the four provinces as well as the federal capital. The Constitution of Pakistan entrusts the superior judiciary with the obligation to preserve, protect and defend the constitution.^[1] Disputed territories of Gilgit-Baltistan and JAMMU AND KASHMIR have separate judicial systems from the main Pakistani system.^[2][3][4][5] The supreme court of India has its original jurisdiction upon it .


The independence of the Pakistani judiciary has changed over time. Whereas the judiciary used to defer to the Pakistani military, which is a dominant actor in Pakistan's politics, the judiciary has increasingly competed with and confronted the military.^[6]


The subordinate judiciary consists of civil and criminal district courts, and numerous specialized courts covering banking, insurance, customs and excise, smuggling, drugs, terrorism, taxation, the environment, consumer protection, and corruption. The criminal courts were created under the Criminal Procedure Code 1898, during the British Raj, and the civil courts were established by the West Pakistan Civil Court Ordinance 1962. There are also revenue courts that operate under the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act 1967. The government may also set up administrative courts and tribunals for exercising exclusive jurisdiction in specific matters.^[1]


As of 2017, Pakistan's judiciary is suffering from a backlog of two million cases, with lawsuits taking an average of nearly ten years to resolve.^[7] According to some estimates, 90 percent of civil cases involve land disputes, owing to Pakistan's lack of a proper land register.^[7]