Why does the office of the CJP not have a defined tenure of a certain number of years?
LONDON: Every public office has a defined tenure, according to the Constitution of Pakistan, limiting the period to which an office can be held, except that of the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) and the governors. Governors are appointed to represent the federation in the provinces and stay in their offices as long as the federal government wants them to, but the nature and role of the CJP’s office is an entirely different story. A CJP must have a defined number of years to stay in his office.
Interestingly, the office of the president has a tenure of five years, as does the National Assembly. The chief election commissioner and members of his team also have a certain defined tenure for which they can stay in office. The Auditor General of Pakistan has a five-year tenure while the COAS has a tenure of three years (not defined by the Constitution but known formally). Then why does the office of the CJP not have a defined tenure of a certain number of years? Isn’t it a gross inconsistency in the Constitution and why isn’t it rectified? Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry stayed in the office of the CJP for a decade but his successor is going to stay in the same office for a mere few months. This is absolutely against the principle of equity!
Saqlain
Published in The Express Tribune, May 17th, 2014.
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