The separation of civil and criminal courts will help speed up the process of dispensing justice, and go towards reducing the massive backlog of cases in the country's courts, the Ministry of Law said in a notification on Thursday.

According to the notification, for the first time in Bangladesh’s history, civil and criminal courts have been completely separated at the district level. The move is aimed at improving the pace of judicial proceedings and easing the burden of pending cases.

Until now, district-level judges — including Joint District Judges, Additional District Judges, and District Judges — had to deal with both civil and criminal (sessions) cases simultaneously. This dual responsibility was widely seen as a major cause of judicial delays and the growing backlog of cases.

Currently, approximately 16 lakh civil cases and 23 lakh criminal cases are pending in lower courts across the country. Despite the higher number of criminal cases, the same judges were responsible for handling both types, significantly slowing down trial processes.

To address this, the government has established 203 Additional Sessions Courts and 367 Joint Sessions Courts, which will deal exclusively with criminal cases. Judges in these courts will no longer be assigned civil case duties, the notification adds.

The ministry expressed hope that this landmark decision will eliminate the dual workload of judges, expedite the disposal of cases, and reduce the overall backlog in both civil and criminal courts.