Right to appeal: Judge challenges SC registrar’s objections on plea

LHC judge is appealing against a show-cause notice

ISLAMABAD:

A serving Lahore High Court (LHC) judge has challenged an order of the Supreme Court’s Registrar to reject his plea against a show-cause notice issued to the judge by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

Raza Kazim, the counsel for the LHC judge, had on Thursday moved an appeal in the apex court against the SC Registrar’s May 3 order which rejected the judge’s constitutional petition.

The LHC judge had been issued a show-cause notice by the SJC on April 19 under sub-para (1) of para 9 of the SJC’s procedure of enquiry 2005 for alleged misconduct. The council directed the judge to submit a reply within 14 days.

In response, the LHC judge filed a constitutional petition in the SC against the SJC’s notice and all the proceedings that led up the council’s action.

But the SC registrar returned the petition on Tuesday after raising four objections over the plea.

LHC judge, however, has decided to take on the registrar’s objections by submitting before the top court that security, inviolability and the independence of the superior court judges particularly for the exercise of discretion in accordance with freedom of thought and opinion is at stake.

The judge has also sought interpretation and enforcement of Articles 2-A, 4, 9, 10-A, 19, 25, 209, 210 and 211 of the constitution.

“The petitioner has no other alternative remedy, [and] seeks to invoke the jurisdiction of the court under Article 184-3 of the constitution,” the appeal reads.

The judge further argues that the maintainability of his petition is a question which only a court of law can adjudicate upon once it is seized of the matter. He subsequently requests that the SC remove the objections raised by registrar’s office and affix his constitutional petition for hearing.

The appeal says that the period provided to the applicant (high court’s judge) to respond the show cause notice has expired on May 4; therefore, the matter is of great urgency to him as well as whole superior judiciary.

Claiming that the 13 judges of the apex court have already declared that proceedings of the SJC may be subject to judicial review before the court, the LHC judge has also challenged the constitutional and legal validity of the Supreme Judicial Council’s procedure of enquiry 2005, urging the court to strike it down.

“The Supreme Judicial Council’s procedure of enquiry 2005 has neither constitutional authority nor delegated authority and the existing procedure is only in the nature of administrative guidelines,” the judge argues.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2016.