Provincial lawyers warn ADR committees weaken courts by diverting cases, bypassing rights with “swift justice.” Gifts to elders bias poor litigants; unresolved disputes double costs and delays in formal courts.

Concerns are mounting over a parallel justice system in Pakistan’s northern frontier region. Lawyers and civil society activists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa say the system, now a law, perpetuates discrimination, undermines legal rights and marginalises women and religious minorities. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Alternate Dispute Resolution Act 2020 (ADR Act) – designed to streamline dispute settlement in the formerly tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – is drawing sharp criticism from human rights observers.

The ADR Act, passed in 2020, authorised the establishment of local committees across eight tribal districts and six subdivisions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sometimes viewed as modernised versions of traditional tribal councils, these committees were meant to offer faster, lower-cost resolution of civil and minor criminal disputes, bypassing formal courts.

However, a report released on October 29 by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) flags serious deficiencies in how the system functions. Among the major issues: all 418 registered ADR committees in the region are exclusively male and disproportionately exclude non-Muslims.

Women and Minorities Left Out

One of the key concerns raised in the HRCP report is that women, despite being frequent victims of domestic abuse, inheritance denial and dowry disputes, often cannot bring their grievances to male-only committees with confidence. As one committee member from Kurram district told the HRCP, “Without women on the committees, we have no choice but to send them back.”

The system also marginalises religious minorities. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa religion minorities account for only 0.38 per cent of the population according to the 2023 national census. The HRCP report says non-Muslims are “structurally excluded” from decision-making despite being subject to the same mechanisms.

Parallel System Undermines Formal Courts

Legal practitioners in the province warn that the ADR committees risk weakening the formal judiciary by diverting disputes away from established courts. One senior lawyer in Peshawar argued that the promised “swift justice” is sometimes a guise for sidestepping constitutional protections.

Concerns include the practice of offering hospitality or gifts to committee elders – not authorised under the Act – which critics say can compromise impartiality, particularly when litigants are poor. Moreover, unresolved cases often find their way back into formal courts, thereby doubling expense and delay rather than reducing it.

For women and minorities, inclusion in any system of dispute resolution is essential if justice is to be meaningful. The absence of female panel members in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s ADR committees and the exclusion of non-Muslim members make clear that what may appear as decentralised and accessible justice may in practice perpetuate discrimination.

Stepping back to assess the broader context of the law, civil society leaders ask: who is making the decisions, under what process and with what oversight? Without these critical questions being addressed, even well-intentioned dispute frameworks risk reproducing old inequalities under a new name.

In Pakistan’s north west the ADR system remains formally in place. But with the HRCP report’s findings gaining attention, reformers are calling for a reset: ensuring female representation, opening membership to all faiths and reinforcing the link between these committees and the formal courts.