Opening the door of the Criminal Justice System through the Police
Reforms Movement

Kamran Adil

Pakistan‟s criminal justice system gets tons of flak daily. This is not only a perception, but a stark reality. The recent Global Rule of Law Index, 2021 has taken Pakistan further down to 130 from its last ranking of 120. The sliding down is painful and calls for action. In this regard, many efforts have been made to overhaul the criminal justice system. Within these
efforts, the movement of police reforms is important – an onerous task of attempting to open the doors of the criminal justice system, particularly for the poor and non-influential citizens of the country. In this movement, a series of official reports (over two dozen) constitute the body of literature that provides a point of departure for further work on the subject. This
movement may be styled as the Police Reforms Movement (“PRM”),
which has witnessed many highs and lows. The purpose of this write up is
to provide an update on the latest activity on the PRM front. The write up
discusses the background, thematic issues, and strategy of PRM separately.