Judicial appointments: Parliamentary panel approves judges for LHC, BHC

Nominations forwarded to PM.

ISLAMABAD:

The parliamentary committee on appointment of superior court judges seconded the National Judicial Commission’s (NJC) recommendations for the appointment of additional judges and forwarded their names to the Prime Minister.

The committee endorsed the commission’s nominations for 15 additional judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and four additional judges of the Balochistan High Court (BHC) in a meeting called on Monday. The committee also approved the induction of 11 new additional judges in the LHC and three new additional judges in the BHC, initially for a year. The PC has sent its recommendations to Prime Minister Gilani through the Senate Secretary. The PM will forward the recommendations to President Zardari for final approval.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain represented the government during the deliberations in place of Sabir Baloch, according to PC Chairman Nayyar Hussain Bokhari. The opposition’s representative, Ghous Bux Mehr lost his membership after he joined the federal cabinet, pursuant to the rules prescribed in the constitution. The PC will notify the two nominees as soon as their names are forwarded by opposition leaders, said Bokhari. One of the members is likely to be from the JUI-F, while the other is likely to hail from the PML-N, said official sources.

The PC had become dysfunctional after two of its opposition members joined the federal cabinet. PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar stressed on the equal representation of treasury and opposition members from the two Houses in the eight-member committee in light of Article 175 (A) of the constitution in a letter addressed to Secretary Senate Raja Amin and drew his attention towards the appointment of the two missing members.

The committee convened a meeting with quorum of six members, four from the treasury benches and two from the opposition. The quorum is considered to be complete provided there is a representative from the opposition in addition to other members.  The PC conducted the proceedings since it had the required mandate and endorsed the NJC’s recommendations. The NJC headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary had referred its recommendations for judges of the superior courts to the parliamentary committee on April 13.  MNAs Sardar Mehtab Abbassi, Aftab Shaaban Merani, Asma Arbab Alamgir and Senators Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain, Ishaq Dar and Deputy Attorney General KK Agha attended the meeting.

Although the committee convened an in-camera meeting, sources revealed the names of some of the judges recommended by the PC. Justices Nasir Saeed Sheikh, Najamul Hassan, Khawaja Imtiaz, Manzoor Ahmed, Tariq Masood, Mansoor Ali Shah, Chaudhary Muhammad Tariq, Sheikh Ahmad Farooq, Shahid Saeed, Rauf Sheikh, Ijaz Ahmad, Khalid Mehmood and Shahid Mehmood were approved as permanent judges for the LHC.

The names of Justices Abdul Waheed, Kazim Shamsi, Ijaz Shah, Mehmood Maqbool Bajwa, Muhammad Younis and Abdul Sattar Asgher, Advocate Shahzad Ghaba, Advocate Ameer Bhatti, Advocate Altaf Ibrahim Qureshi and Advocate Aminuddin have been approved as additional judges of the LHC.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2011.