ISLAMABAD: After being little more than a ‘rubber stamp’ body for over three years since the Supreme Court gave the upper hand to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP), the Parliamentary Committee (PC) on the appointment of superior court judges is likely to announce next week a strategy for regaining its role in making the said appointments.
A sub-committee of the PC formed last year after conducting a series of meetings with representatives of the Pakistan Bar Council, provincial bar councils and major bar associations, has formalised the strategy for strengthening the PC’s role in the appointment of superior courts’ judges.
A meeting for giving final touches to the recommendations of the sub-committee has been scheduled for May 8. In the meeting eminent lawyers like S.M. Zafar and Barrister Wasim Sajjad, vice-chairman Balochistan Bar Council and president Peshawar High Court Bar Association have also been invited.
Senator Farooq H. Naek, head of the sub-committee, confirmed that a final meeting to decide the matter is going to be held in Parliament House next week.
The sources said that the PC may propose legislation for greater parliamentary oversight in the process of judges’ appointments as not only the lawmakers but the representatives of the apex lawyers’ bodies also recommended doing so.
According to sources, the legal eagles suggested to the committee that since the apex court made them ‘inactive’ through its decisions, the lawmakers can overturn the situation by bringing in a constitutional amendment in order to secure a greater role.
The sources claimed that some legal experts even recommended changing the composition of the JCP through an amendment and giving an effective role to the elected representatives of the lawyers in the said appointments as currently the judges of the superior courts are dominating the JCP.
Under the 18th Amendment, the JCP has been empowered to nominate and recommend for the vacant positions of the judges in the superior courts while the PC’s job was to endorse the recommendations or otherwise.
The controversy over the powers of the PC and JCP surfaced after then Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, in October 2010 while hearing petitions against the 18th Amendment, ‘overpowered’ the PC and held that, “if Parliamentary Committee disagrees or rejects any recommendations of the Judicial Commission, it shall give specific reasons and the Prime Minister shall send copy of the said opinion of the Committee to the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the same shall be justiciable by the Supreme Court”.
After the said verdict, the government introduced the 19th Amendment, but did not give the JCP a final say in the appointment of judges. However, in Feb 2011, when the PC rejected the JCP’s recommendations about four additional judges of the Lahore High Court and two judges of the Sindh High Court, the sympathisers of the aggrieved judges brought the matter to the Supreme Court.
Deciding the petitions, the apex court observed that the PC was not mandated to evaluate professional capabilities. The said order, according to lawmakers, made the PC merely a rubber stamp.
Last year’s rejection of the JCP’s recommendation over the appointment of an additional judge of the LHC again triggered the debate of PC-JCP powers.
On Oct 11 last year, the JCP, headed by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry recommended Hafiz Shahid Nadeem Kahloon as additional judge of the LHC. Mr Kahloon was among those few judges whose names were recommended by the JCP led by ex-CJP Chaudhry a few weeks before his retirement.
On Oct 25, the PC rejected the nomination of Mr Kahloon, after which a Lahore-based lawyer filed a petition in the LHC against the order of the said committee.
The LHC, on the said petition, has sought comments from the federal government for turning down the recommendations of the JCP and the matter is still pending before the court.
“We don’t want confrontation with any institution, but we are not ready to be used like a rubber stamp”, a PC member said.
He asserted that the judiciary is respectable for the parliamentarians and they should reciprocate by respecting the legislature.