ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday established a Legal Aid Cell at its Public Facilitation Centre (PFC) to assist deserving litigants seeking guidance in pursuing or defending their legal rights. The new Supreme Court legal aid cell will be staffed by a dedicated legal assistant, Shumaila Naz of the Judicial Reforms Initiative said.
According to Naz, the assistant will guide eligible individuals towards appropriate legal assistance. She said the facility was aimed at making access to justice simpler and more responsive, and would complement the administrative and facilitation services already provided through the PFC.
The centre functions as a one-window facility for litigants and visitors to the Supreme Court, allowing them to seek help at a single point instead of approaching different branches of the court separately. Naz said the PFC coordinates internally with the relevant branches to help citizens access the service they require.
A wider push for easier access
The initiative is part of the apex court’s broader effort to expand technology-based public services. Nearly 20 services are currently accessible online through the PFC portal on the Supreme Court’s website, allowing citizens to use several facilities without visiting the court premises, Naz said.
The court has also introduced the 1818 helpline, through which members of the public can obtain information about their cases, seek assistance in using online services and raise administrative queries.
Naz said the Legal Aid Cell would now provide an additional channel through the same facilitation framework for people requiring legal assistance. “The idea is to ensure that a citizen does not have to know which branch to approach, whom to contact, or where to go merely to obtain an answer,” she said.
She said access to justice was not limited to entering a courtroom, but also required citizens to be able to understand procedures, identify the relevant offices and obtain information about their cases without unnecessary difficulty. The broader objective, she added, was to organise administrative, technological and legal assistance around the needs of citizens rather than requiring litigants to navigate the court system on their own.
A demand courts have long felt
The new cell arrives in a year when ordinary Pakistanis have watched high-profile cases move through multiple forums, each with its own procedure. Feature Pakistan reported earlier this month that the Islamabad High Court had taken up the appeals of Imaan Mazari and Hadi Chattha against the framing of charges in the security breach case, a matter that has passed through the anti-terrorism court, jail-trial proceedings and the high court.
Days earlier, the Sindh High Court dismissed the state’s appeal against Mahrang Baloch’s 2025 acquittal in a sedition case, a saga that has run from terrorism and sedition charges through an acquittal and now a bail plea before the Supreme Court on Oct 21.
October has kept Pakistan’s courts busy beyond these marquee cases. The Sindh High Court’s decision to set aside most of the censor board’s cuts to the film ‘Ghost School’, and the detention of PTI MNA Nasim Ali Shah in Bannu, have both shown how quickly ordinary citizens can find themselves needing a lawyer, and a clear answer on where to turn.
For the litigants in such cases, and for the many citizens with no lawyer on speed dial, the question is rarely whether a remedy exists, but where to begin. A dedicated assistant at the PFC’s legal aid cell is meant to answer exactly that question. Whether the cell can reach the people it targets, many of whom live far from Islamabad and cannot easily travel, will depend on how well it works alongside the online portal and the 1818 helpline rather than as a walk-in counter alone.
What happens next
The court has not yet detailed how eligibility for legal assistance through the cell will be determined, or how many assistants will eventually staff it. For now, the appointment of the first dedicated assistant and the linking of the cell with the PFC’s existing one-window services marks the Supreme Court’s most direct attempt yet to put legal guidance within reach of citizens who approach it without counsel. Tribune first reported the establishment of the cell on Monday.
