Justice delayed is justice denied. This saying embodies the core issue of Pakistan’s judicial system, where the backlog of cases increases daily with no immediate solution. Pakistan has a multi-tiered court structure, with the Supreme Court at the top, followed by High Courts, Federal Shariah Court, and Lower Courts. The lower judiciary, comprising District and Session Courts, deals with civil and criminal cases, respectively. These courts bear the heaviest burden, with 1.86 million pending cases compared to 0.39 million at the higher levels in 2025. Civil cases in the district judiciary make up 64% of this backlog. Therefore, this insight focuses on district courts, examining the causes of backlog, past reforms, and why a solution remains elusive.

A ‘backlog’ is: “number of pending cases not resolved within an established timeframe.” Although no time limit is specified in the law, the National Judicial Policy-Making Committee (NJPMC) has given deadlines for case disposal. For instance, 12 months to close civil court decrees. When these timelines are not met, the resulting accumulation of unresolved cases constitutes a backlog.

Emerging studies suggest that the backlog of civil cases may be contributing to rising crime rates as delayed justice pushes people to take matters into their own hands.

In Pakistan, the issue of backlog is concerning. The following graph illustrates the trend of backlog in the district judiciary over the past 15 years: The National Judicial Policy (NJP) was introduced in 2009 under the leadership of then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. It was a judicial reform plan developed by NJPMC. The policy established timelines for case disposal and mandated that all cases filed before December 31, 2008, must be resolved within one year.

This initiative achieved moderate success in 2009, resulting in a 13.7% reduction in backlog. However, once the extraordinary push eased and leadership changed, the underlying problems reasserted themselves,........

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