For many Pakistanis, seeking justice traditionally means entering a courtroom, engaging a lawyer, and embarking upon legal proceedings that may continue for years, sometimes decades. Disputes that could potentially be resolved through dialogue often develop into prolonged adversarial contests involving repeated hearings, escalating costs, and procedural delays. This raises a fundamental question: must every dispute ultimately be decided by a judge, or can justice sometimes be achieved without a judgment?
Pakistan’s growing judicial backlog makes this question particularly important. According to the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, approximately 2.19 million cases were pending before the High Courts and District Judiciary as of 31 December 2025, including approximately 1.90 million before the District Judiciary. Since district courts constitute the primary point of contact between ordinary citizens and the justice system, this backlog demonstrates the need to reconsider the conventional approach of resolving every dispute through adjudication.
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), particularly mediation, offers another pathway towards justice. It does not undermine the constitutional authority of courts; rather, it provides an opportunity to resolve suitable disputes through dialogue, negotiation, and consensus, leaving judicial adjudication available for matters requiring authoritative determination.
From Adjudication to Resolution: The momentum behind this approach became particularly visible in 2026 with the establishment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s first Court-Annexed Mediation Centre, inaugurated on 18 August in collaboration with the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme. The Centre seeks to provide a structured mechanism through which appropriate disputes can be referred to mediation, allowing parties to participate directly in determining their outcomes.
This development reflects an important transformation in the philosophy of justice. A justice system should not be evaluated exclusively by the number of judgments it delivers, but also by its ability to resolve disputes fairly, efficiently, affordably, and within a reasonable time. The ultimate objective is not the production of judgments; it is the meaningful resolution of disputes.
What Does a Mediator Actually Do? Unlike litigation, where a judge examines competing claims and delivers a binding decision, mediation does not involve the imposition of a verdict. A mediator facilitates communication, identifies areas of disagreement, clarifies the parties’ interests, and assists them in negotiating a mutually acceptable settlement.
The mediator does not determine who is right or wrong. Instead, the parties themselves retain control over the outcome. This approach can be particularly valuable in commercial, contractual, landlord-tenant, family, and property disputes, where maintaining an ongoing relationship may be as important as resolving the immediate disagreement.
Litigation determines competing legal claims, whereas mediation facilitates consensual resolution. These mechanisms should therefore be understood as complementary rather than competing components of a modern justice system.
The Economic Case for Mediation: The importance of mediation extends beyond the legal system. Litigation imposes considerable financial and economic costs through professional fees, repeated appearances, transportation, administrative expenses, and prolonged uncertainty. These burdens disproportionately affect individuals, small businesses, and economically vulnerable litigants.
For businesses, unresolved disputes can immobilise capital, disrupt contractual relationships, discourage investment, and undermine commercial confidence. An effective mediation mechanism may reduce these costs by resolving suitable disputes more quickly and preserving valuable economic relationships.
Although mediation cannot eliminate every consequence of litigation, it offers an opportunity to reduce unnecessary financial and opportunity costs.
Pakistan’s Existing Legal Framework: Pakistan does not begin from a legal vacuum. The Alternative Dispute Resolution Act 2017, together with provincial ADR legislation and procedural rules, provides a statutory foundation for institutionalising alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms.
The principal challenge is now implementation: developing credible institutions, professional standards, trained mediators, public confidence, and effective enforcement mechanisms.
In June 2026, the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan approved a proposed framework for introducing ADR mechanisms into banking disputes. The proposal reportedly envisages inserting section 10A into the Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finances) Ordinance 2001 and establishing specialised ADR committees comprising experts in law, banking, and commerce.
Such initiatives recognise that prolonged banking disputes affect not merely the immediate parties but also businesses, investment, credit markets, and wider economic activity. Specialised mediation mechanisms may therefore contribute to both commercial efficiency and access to justice.
Mediation Is Not a Universal Cure: Mediation should not, however, be regarded as a universal solution to Pakistan’s judicial backlog. Certain constitutional questions, serious criminal matters, disputes involving fundamental legal principles, and cases involving coercion or substantial power imbalances require authoritative judicial determination.
The purpose of ADR should not be to divert cases from courts merely to improve disposal statistics. Mediation must remain voluntary, informed, appropriate, and procedurally fair. Parties must understand their legal rights, mediators must maintain independence and impartiality, confidentiality must be protected, and settlement agreements must have clear legal enforceability.
Most importantly, litigants must never be pressured into surrendering legitimate legal claims simply because the judicial system seeks to reduce its backlog.
Courts and Mediation: Complementary, Not Competing: Court-annexed mediation should not replace judicial justice with private compromise. Rather, it should operate as a complementary mechanism within the broader architecture of justice.
The judge remains the guardian of legality and the ultimate authority where adjudication is necessary. The mediator facilitates consensual resolution where the nature of the dispute permits it.
The distinction is straightforward: the court determines the dispute, whereas the mediator facilitates the parties’ resolution of it.
Such an arrangement may enable courts to concentrate their institutional resources on matters requiring judicial determination while allowing parties to resolve appropriate disputes more efficiently and collaboratively.
The Need for a Change in Legal Culture: Pakistan’s recent policy direction reflects an effort to institutionalise mediation. In August 2026, the Federal Minister for Law and Justice stated that the government was taking measures to expand ADR and mediation mechanisms across the country and strengthen dispute resolution before matters reach the courts.
Nevertheless, changing the country’s litigation culture requires considerably more than legislation and mediation centres. It demands a transformation in legal consciousness.
For generations, litigation has often been perceived as the natural response to a violation of legal rights. Mediation introduces another possibility: asserting one’s legal rights and resolving a dispute need not always be adversarial exercises.
This transformation also has implications for the legal profession. Lawyers will increasingly need expertise in negotiation, mediation advocacy, conflict management, settlement strategies, and dispute prevention. The effective lawyer of the future must understand not only when litigation is indispensable but also when negotiated resolution may better protect the client’s legitimate interests.
Learning from International Experience: International experience demonstrates the growing recognition that modern justice systems require multiple pathways for dispute resolution. The objective is not to abolish courts but to ensure that adjudication is employed where necessary rather than automatically.
Pakistan must therefore consider how courts, arbitration, mediation, negotiation, and other dispute-resolution mechanisms can be integrated into a coherent framework in which each performs its appropriate function.
Beyond the Mediation Centre: The Supreme Court’s Court-Annexed Mediation Centre should be viewed as part of a broader institutional transformation rather than an isolated reform initiative. Its success will depend upon the availability of trained mediators, public confidence, voluntary participation, confidentiality, and enforceable settlements. The real test will be whether mediation becomes an accessible and credible component of Pakistan’s justice system rather than merely another institutional mechanism.
Justice Is Not Synonymous with Victory: There is also a deeper philosophical dimension to mediation. Justice is not necessarily synonymous with victory. A judgment may authoritatively determine legal rights, but a negotiated settlement may sometimes achieve what litigation cannot: preserve relationships, reduce hostility, protect commercial interests, and allow parties to move forward without years of continuing conflict.
This does not mean that compromise should replace legal rights or that individuals should surrender legitimate claims to avoid litigation. Rather, the justice system should provide meaningful choices about how appropriate disputes can be resolved. The availability of such choices is itself an important dimension of access to justice.
From “Who Will Win?” to “Can the Dispute Be Resolved?”: Pakistan does not necessarily need fewer courts; it needs a justice system in which courts are approached where their authority is indispensable and alternative mechanisms are available where consensual resolution is appropriate. The success of ADR should therefore be measured not merely by the number of mediation centres established or settlements recorded, but by whether ordinary citizens experience justice as accessible, timely, affordable, and effective.
The courtroom must remain the ultimate forum for the authoritative determination and protection of legal rights. However, it need not be the first destination for every disagreement. Pakistan’s emerging mediation framework presents an important opportunity to reconsider access to justice in the twenty-first century. The central question is no longer simply: Who will prevail in litigation? It is increasingly becoming a more fundamental question:
Can this dispute be resolved before it becomes a case? In many appropriate circumstances, the answer is yes. Dialogue, negotiation, and mediation can prevent disputes from escalating into prolonged litigation. The objective is not to diminish the constitutional significance of courts but to reserve judicial adjudication for matters that genuinely require an authoritative determination of rights.
If Pakistan succeeds in developing a credible, accessible, and professionally regulated mediation culture, the courtroom may increasingly perform its intended role—not as the inevitable destination of every disagreement, but as the ultimate safeguard of rights when consensual avenues of resolution are inappropriate or exhausted.
Mediation, therefore, does not weaken the justice system. Properly designed and implemented, it can strengthen judicial institutions by enabling them to concentrate on their essential responsibilities. The future of justice in Pakistan may ultimately lie not in choosing between courts and mediation, but in developing a system in which both work together to ensure that every dispute receives the form of resolution most appropriate to its nature, the rights involved, and the interests of justice.
