Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?
In this paper, the author analyses the efficacy of the Pakistani civil procedure of court-linked mediation and whether the mediation is a substantive reform or a cosmetic measure to overcome the court backlog and delays. The research employs a mixed-method approach, which is a combination of a doctrinal legal analysis and empirical data in the form of court documents, mediation lists, and interviews with stakeholders. The results indicate that although mediation saves time on the disposal of cases and adjournments and leads to non-trivial settlements, its use is inconsistent. The problems of referral delays, judicial resistance, and lawyer resistance show that mediation continues to be an optional or secondary process. The paper concludes that to have mediation create a lasting change, institutionalization should be further, such as through more explicit referral policies, mediator training principles, and more procedural fairness precautions.
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Court-Annexed Mediation, Pakistani Civil Procedure, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Access to Justice, Procedural Justice, Implementation Gap, Settlement Durability
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(1) Kamran Abdullah
Deputy Registrar, Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue, Islamabad, Pakistan.
(2) Aisha Rasool
Senior Consultant and Head of Research and Opinion wing at Ministry of Law and Justice, Pakistan.
Cite this article
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APA : Abdullah, K., & Rasool, A. (2025). Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?. Global Political Review, X(III), 246-260. https://doi.org/10.31703/gpr.2025(X-III).23
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CHICAGO : Abdullah, Kamran, and Aisha Rasool. 2025. "Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?." Global Political Review, X (III): 246-260 doi: 10.31703/gpr.2025(X-III).23
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HARVARD : ABDULLAH, K. & RASOOL, A. 2025. Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?. Global Political Review, X, 246-260.
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MHRA : Abdullah, Kamran, and Aisha Rasool. 2025. "Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?." Global Political Review, X: 246-260
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MLA : Abdullah, Kamran, and Aisha Rasool. "Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?." Global Political Review, X.III (2025): 246-260 Print.
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OXFORD : Abdullah, Kamran and Rasool, Aisha (2025), "Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?", Global Political Review, X (III), 246-260
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TURABIAN : Abdullah, Kamran, and Aisha Rasool. "Court-Annexed Mediation under Pakistani Civil Procedure: Cosmetic Reform or Substantive Change?." Global Political Review X, no. III (2025): 246-260. https://doi.org/10.31703/gpr.2025(X-III).23