Appointment of junior judges to SC: Bar councils object to nominations

ISLAMABAD: The leaderships of the top Bar councils and the Associations of the Supreme Court and the high courts expressed grave reservations over the nomination for the appointment of junior judges to the Supreme Court in violation of the seniority principle.

The names of Chief Justice Peshawar High Court (PHC) Qaiser Rashid Khan, Sindh High Court (SHC) judges – Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui, Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, and Justice Shahid Waheed of Lahore High Court (LHC) will be considered to fill the existing vacancies in the Supreme Court in Thursday’s Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) meeting.

A joint meeting of the representatives of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), High Court Bar Associations of all the provinces, the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Provincial Bar Councils and members/nominees of Bar Councils to the JCP was held on Wednesday, in the Supreme Court building, Islamabad.

Muhammad Ahsan Bhoon, president SCBA and Pir Muhammad Masood Chishti, chairman Executive Committee PBC presided over the meeting, which considered the situation arising from the controversies of the independence of the judiciary regarding the functioning of Courts as well as the appointment of judges in the superior courts.

The House wanted strict adherence to the Rule of Law and Principle of Seniority, therefore, expressed displeasure over the nominations for the appointment of junior judges to the Supreme Court and termed it a violation of the seniority principle; hence disapproved it.

The meeting reiterated its long-standing demand that the JCP immediately amend its Rules to allow nominations for judicial appointments to be initiated by any member of the Judicial Commission rather than the chief justice alone (which is even otherwise violative of Article 175-A of the Constitution) and, moreover, to frame fair, transparent and objective criteria and procedures to gauge the suitability of prospective appointees.

It demanded amendments in Articles 175-A and 209 of the Constitution, in order to unify the forum for appointment and removal of judges and to make it more inclusive and comprising equal representation of all the stakeholders, ie, Judges, Bar, Executive and the Parliament. Moreover, the House demanded that Article 184 (3) of the Constitution be amended in order to provide one right of appeal.

The meeting further demanded that the federal government immediately frame legislation in terms of Articles 175(2) and 191 of the Constitution regulating the manner of exercise of jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and, in particular, to end the sole discretion of the chief justice in relation to the constitution of benches, fixation of cases and initiation of suo motu proceedings and vest the same in a Committee comprising the five senior-most judges of the Court. The House asked the federal government to immediately withdraw the curative review filed against Justice Qazi Faez Isa, senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court, as admittedly, it was wrongly filed.

The meeting also demanded that the Supreme Court rules be amended to ensure that the review petitions are heard by a bench different from the original bench and allow the engagement of different counsel for the review petition.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022