Parliamentary panel rejects JCP recommendations

Committee on Judges Appointments offers own suggestions; lawyers’ leaders claim favourites were recommended JCP

ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Committee on Judges Appointments has refused to endorse the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP)’s decision on extensions for additional judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC).

The parliamentary committee held a meeting to consider the JCP’s October 12 decision, wherein it proposed not giving extensions in service tenure to seven additional judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC). The commission did recommend one-year extensions for seven other additional judges of the same court.



Sources told The Express Tribune that contrary to the JCP’s proposals, the committee has refused to extend the tenure of four judges and referred their matter to the commission for review. Likewise, the committee did not endorse the stance of JCP’s recommendations to drop the names of seven LHC judges. The committee has asked the JCP to share reasons for not recommending extensions for these judges, they added.

A rift between the superior judiciary and the apex body of lawyers has already widened as a senior office-bearer of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) has strongly criticised the JCP’s decision not to give extensions to the seven additional judges.



The JCP, on October 12, recommended one-year extensions for Justice Mujahid Mustaqeem Ahmed, Justice Tariq Iftikhar Ahmad, Justice Asjad Javaid Ghural, Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh, Justice Jawad Hassan, Justice Muzamil Akhtar Shabir and Justice Chaudhry Abdul Aziz.

The commission dropped the names of Justice Muhammad Bashir Paracha, Justice Abdul Sattar, Justice Habibullah Amir, Justice Mudassir Khalid Abbasi, Justice Ahmad Raza Gilani, Justice Muhammad Ali and Justice Abdul Rahman Aurangzeb.

A senior PBC member told The Express Tribune that PBC will hold a special meeting of all representatives of the JCP as well as provincial bar councils on November 1 to chalk out a strategy regarding the procedure for judges’ appointments.

He informed that participants will also discuss filing a petition to revisit the SC’s Munir Bhatti case verdict, which made the Parliamentary Committee on Judges Appointments ineffective.



The superior bars have continuously questioned the procedure for judicial appointments since 2010. Even the PBC has proposed that the JCP amend its rules to ensure transparency in the process.

In a letter written to the parliamentary committee last week,  PBC Vice Chairman Ahsen Bhoon said the JCP, in its recent meeting, decided on the extensions while disregarding “merit and competence”.

“Many of the dropped judges were, for sure, more competent, law-knowing and upright compared to many having been retained by giving extension in service,” he wrote, adding that disregarding the bar’s recommendations in the process indicated “favouritism and nepotism” on the part of some members of the judiciary.

He also claimed that the commission failed to ensure the appointment of genuinely honest and upright judges.

“The judicial commission has proven to be a consortium of judges having a majority [in the] decision-making [process] and so [they are] acting according to their wishes to accommodate their near and dear ones, thus compromising the transparent and judicious process of appointment of judges,” he wrote.

Another PBC executive member, Raheel Kamran Sheikh, agreed that the process of judicial appointments lacked transparency, but alleged that leaders of the bar had also been acting “on self-serving agendas” instead of striving for a more open and meritorious process.