Justice Denied

About half of the responses cited distance and costs as key
impediments to accessing courts. The total average
expenditure on a case was Rs.210,000. 73 per cent of
respondents confirmed that lawyers’ fee was the biggest
court-related expenditure, accounting for 37 per cent of
total costs. Other costs included about 30 per cent
incurred in travel-related expenses; 18 per cent on court
fees, 8 per cent on documentary evidence, and 5 per cent
on other miscellaneous expenses.
Litigants also confirmed the payment of bribes. However,
the confessed amounts averaged about 2 per cent of total
expenditure. Non-disclosure is a possibility, which means
that actual expenditure on bribes may be higher.
Locational differences were significant as 52 per cent of
respondents from District Mardan included bribes in their
list of expenditures, compared to 29 per cent of
respondents from District Abbottabad. Sex-disaggregated
data was also revealing. 70 per cent of men compared to
20 per cent of women said they paid bribes as part of their
litigation expenses.
In addition to expenditures, opportunity cost in terms of
loss of income was also recorded. 86 per cent of litigants
belonged to the income bracket of upto Rs.20,000 per
month. 69 per cent said that they had lost more than one
month’s salary, or an estimated average loss of about
Rs.27,000. In 55 per cent of the litigation cases, other
household members accompanying the litigant also
experienced a loss of income, indicating that the
cumulative loss to the household is likely to be more than
the stated average loss per litigant.
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