Unlocking Access to Justice: The Role of Monetary, Time, and Emotional Costs in Pakistan’s Litigation System

Abstract

It is widely believed of people both in transitional and developing nation state that official justice system is extremely expensive. The assumption of high cost and delay related with the jurisdiction prohibitive huge amount of individuals to approach courts to attain justice and originates legal uncertainty. This research analyzes the barriers that confronts to the user of justice and identified these barriers as cost. The analysis of the cost of access to justice is from the user perspective and how they experienced and evaluate the quality of official justice procedure and its outcome. A framework is designed to measure the cost of access to justice that further divided into three categories which are monetary cost, time cost and emotional cost. The cross-section survey is conducted for data collection and at the same time user's perception on the quality of the procedure and outcome from Lahore High Court. The data collected from the people who experienced the judicial system to resolve their conflict. For this purpose, property and financial cases taken into account. The survey questionnaire is filled from 100 litigants. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to measure Access to Justice (ACJ) and its determinants as constructs. Moreover, bootstrapping is used to estimate Access to Justice through its determinants. Except informational Justice (INFJ), all constructs significantly contribute to evaluating access to justice (ACJ). Emotional cost (EMC) identified as the major predictor of ACJ. The results also show direct and indirect effects of Interpersonal Justice (IPJ), Monetary Cost (MC), Time Cost (TC), and Quality of Outcome (QOU). People regard procedure and outcome fair if they receive favorable judgment. The cost of access to justice is linked to the value that people forgo, when they don’t receive timely and affordable justice.