Re-evaluation: Senate panel seeks debate on contempt of court law

Will take up Farhatullah Babar’s bill next week

ISLAMABAD:

The Senate Standing Committee on Law is likely to discuss a bill to amend the contempt of court law in a meeting next week.

Introduced by PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar earlier this month, the Contempt of Court (Amendment) Bill, 2016, aims to initiate larger discussion for working out necessary changes in the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003.

During the last meeting of the committee, the law ministry had opposed the bill on technical grounds, but it had no reservations for initiating a larger discussion on the issue.

“No single party or an individual can make any changes in the contempt law,” said Senator Babar, while talking to The Express Tribune on Saturday.

Quoting an example, he said that back in 2012, the PPP government made amendments in the contempt law on the basis of its parliamentary strength, but that amendment was subsequently overturned by the court itself. That was easy because it did not have any bi-partisan parliamentary consensus, he added.

The lawmaker further said: “No matter how reasonable this bill may be, the most important thing is, we should build a consensus and the consensus can only be built when we invite for a broader discussion the representatives of the bars, the judges and political parties.”

The senator said it was an acknowledged principle that the dignity of judges and courts must rest more on the conduct of the honourable judges, the soundness of their verdicts, rather than resorting to the contempt of court law.

“Dignity of courts that rests merely on resort to contempt law is to make the dignity rest on fragile and sandy foundations,” he said. “The bill seeks to ensure that dignity of a court is seen to be resting on surer foundations according to the statement of objects and reasons.”

“The judge should be protected from offensive remarks from the litigant, but the litigant should also be protected from offensive remarks by judges,” he said. “The amendment bill is not important; what is important is the initiation of a public discussion on the need to amend the contempt law and how best to do it.”

The meeting will be held with a larger number of people, but not necessarily be a public debate.


Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2016.