Zubair Qureshi
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has decided to live-stream the judicial proceedings of the court and Friday turned out to be the first day when Chief Justice Athar Minallah’s court proceedings went live though to a limited audience and on a trial basis.
Following the directions of Chief Justice Athar Minallah, the IHC’s IT department installed cameras and equipment including a live streaming system in Justice Athar Minallah’s court.
This was the historic day in the history of Pakistan’s judicial proceedings when the court proceedings went live via the Internet.
If the trial goes successful, the live streaming will be available on the official website of IHC, said the IT head of the court Umar Rashid.
In the beginning, the live-streaming of the IHC proceedings is available to the judges, members of the bars, journalists and other stakeholders. After a month, it will be reviewed and after evaluating the success of the experiment it will be available on the high court’s website.
Meanwhile, Justice Athar Minallah sought suggestions from the court reporters and directed the IHC Journalists Association (IHCJA) President Saqib Bashir to provide assistance and submit suggestions to make the experiment better.
Once the experiment goes successful, a common citizen in any part of the country/world would be able to see the live proceedings of the Islamabad High Court and according to legal experts, this is quite historic, unusual and unheard of so far in the country.
A number of lawyers while talking to Pakistan Observer said for the law officers it would be immensely useful as sometime a counsel is unable to reach the court so he can attend the proceedings via internet of course with the permission of the honourable court and thus the culture of taking dates will also be discouraged through use of this hi-tech facility.
