Jurists for effective implementation of ADR at every business setup

Eminent jurists and legal experts have called for effective implementation of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) at every business setup, a strong curriculum in business schools and amendments to laws to deal with disputes and climate change issues without intervention of courts.

They were addressing at seminar on Pakistan’s ADR renaissance at the IBA City Campus in Karachi on

Friday.

In his address, Supreme Court senior puisne judge Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah said businesses of the country have to go for a preferential dispute resolution mechanism for resolving their disputes as courts have been clogged up with 2.4 million cases.

He said that around 2.4 million cases were pending in courts of which 83 percent were pending in trial courts, and cases were continuously piling up despite the disposal of 1.7 million cases with a shortage of judicial officers and judges.

The Supreme Court judge said that businesses are required to take the initiative on their own instead of looking to the courts and initiate a mechanism for their own ADR just like the world’s largest businesses like Amazon, Google and other multinational companies do to resolve their business and consumer-related disputes.

Justice Shah also called upon businesses to prepare themselves to face the climate change challenges in respect of their operations, productions and supply chain issues.

He said business schools should prepare a curriculum by incorporating ADR and businesses must have their own ADR mechanism to settle business disputes instead of approaching courts. He also referred to China’s Belt Road Initiative and CPEC-related ventures and asked businesses to incorporate the ADR mechanism on their own, instead of filing litigation, to improve the economy.

Referring to data of disposal of cases, Chief Justice Sindh High Court Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui said that 16,500 cases were disposed of either through compromise or out-of-court settlement, while 39,058 cases were decided on merit. He said the ratio for referring cases to mediation had declined for the last five years from 428 cases to 229 cases in 2019.

He also suggested a strong curriculum for meditation as first tool to resolve disputes and emphasized need to make effective amendments to the dispute resolution laws.

The Islamabad High Court’s Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, the Lahore High Court’s Justice Jawad Hasan and the Pehsawar High Court’s Justice S.M Ateeq Shah highlighted the importance and working of ADR in their respective jurisdictions.

Attorney General of Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan said that proposed legislation on arbitration has been tabled and will be passed in a couple of months, and the federal government is committed to setting up an international arbitration court in Islamabad.

He said that signing the Singapore convention would be an important step for entering the arena of ADR and he would advise the government to become signatory tothe Singapore convention and take benefit from such a mediation platform.

Chairman Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan Akif Saeed also highlighted reforms in the SECP to deal with business disputes.

Panel discussions were also held on international and regional connectivity, ADR and commercial rule of law in which panellists from various countries highlighted their experiences and effective implementation of the ADR.

Secretary Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan Riffat Inam Butt, and Executive Director IBA Dr. Akbar Zaidi also spoke. Earlier, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah inaugurated the ADR International Centre at the IBA.