ISLAMABAD: After questioning the judicial nominations of Justice Qazi Faiz Isa, the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) have now asked Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Atta Bandial. There is strong objection to the three nominations. The Supreme Court ignored the principle of seniority, The News reported.
The reaction came after the announcement of a meeting of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan convened on Monday (yesterday) to consider nominees for vacant posts in the Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice has appointed Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Athar Minullah, two Sindh High Court judges including Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Shafi Siddiqui and Justice Shahid Waheed for promotion to their five vacant posts in the Supreme Court. What is nominated? .
Reacting to this development, Sindh Bar Council Vice Chairman Zulfikar Ali Khan Jalbani, PBC Vice Chairman Hafeezur Rehman Chaudhry, SCBA President Muhammad Ahsan Bhawan appreciated Justice Minullah’s nomination to the Supreme Court. However, he expressed serious reservations and disapproved the nominations of three junior judges of the Sindh and Lahore High Courts.
In a joint statement, PBC and SCBA said that consensus could not be reached in the previous meeting and some members even voted against such nominations of junior judges of high courts. He asserted that such nominations would demoralize other judges of the High Courts and adversely affect their judicial work, adding that this fact was mainly due to the cases of the judges. It is against the principle of seniority.
“It is the consistent position of the legal community that the JCP should follow the principle of seniority and stop the practice and desire of selection and selection for promotion to the Supreme Court”, he said, adding that if the commission again goes against seniority. has been violated. There is a principle of elevating judges to the Supreme Court, the legal community will resist it with full force and will.
The SBC and Bar Associations of the province expressed displeasure over the Chief Justice’s decision to nominate only two judges from Sindh instead of the three vacancies created after the recent retirement of three judges from the province.
The SBC also announced a province-wide boycott of judicial proceedings on October 24 (Monday) in protest against the nomination of a small number of judges from Sindh for promotion to the Supreme Court.
Passing the resolution and addressing the press conference in SBC, PBC member Akhtar Hussain, SBC Vice Chairman Jalbani and representatives of bar associations said that at the expense of judges of Sindh, the Supreme Court of Punjab The number of judges will increase. eight.
He said that the Supreme Court is a federal institution which has the exclusive authority to decide disputes between provinces and between provinces and the federation. He said that the Chief Justice had himself observed in the last judicial commission meeting that there is a need to look at informal provincial quotas and even ethnic balance within the court. He said that the abandonment of this principle had created great and justified resentment in the smaller provinces.
He said that the Chief Justice has once again nominated the same two judges for promotion to the Supreme Court even though they were not approved for promotion in the JCP meeting on July 28 as it was an unjustified deviation from the principle of seniority. was He said that abuse of discretion would create more controversy and damage the reputation of the Judicial Commission, the Supreme Court and the judges concerned. He also criticized the out-of-turn nomination of a Lahore High Court judge for promotion to the Supreme Court.
The JCP is Likely to Meet on Monday.
The JCP is likely to meet tomorrow (Monday) to consider the appointment of four judges to the Supreme Court. Currently, the Supreme Court is short of five judges out of a total of 17.
Among the judges whose names have been proposed for promotion are Justice Athar Minullah of Islamabad High Court, Justice Shahid Waheed of Lahore High Court and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Shafi Siddiqui of Sindh High Court.
The last time the JCP met to consider the promotion of judges, the commission opposed the set of four names by a five-to-four majority, but deferred the nomination from the PHC.
The last JCP meeting which ended suddenly included the names of PHC Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan, Lahore High Court Justice Shahid Waheed and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui and Sindh High Court Justice Nimatullah Phalpoto. was reviewed.
