JCP sets the bar higher for additional judges

Commission to only consider ‘substantive’ orders for job confirmation

ISLAMABAD:

The Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) has decided that additional judges should only share a list of their substantive orders for the confirmation of their jobs.

Sources told The Express Tribune that in its last meeting, the commission had resolved that a list of only substantive decisions of additional judges should be sent to it for consideration.

Generally, the JCP proposes additional judges of high courts for a year. Later, it examines their performance before their job confirmation.

Therefore, additional judges send a list of the cases they have disposed of to the commission for examination.

The chief justice of Pakistan, being the chairman of the JCP, forms a committee to examine the performance of additional judges in view of the cases they had decided.

However, the JCP in its last meeting noted that cases that had dismissed as withdrawn had also been included in the list of decided matters.

Therefore, the commission decided that only substantive judgments should be sent for examination.

It has also been learnt that the consultation for the appointment of 20 additional judges of the Lahore High Court was at its final stage.

Superior bars have mounted pressure and demanded a meaningful consultation in the process of judges’ appointments.

The representatives of bars have alleged that judges were being appointed on the basis of favouritism.

However, it has also been alleged that representatives of bars mount pressure to just accommodate their nominees in the proposed list of new judges.

Talking about the appointment of LHC judges, Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) Vice Chairman Abid Saqi said the JCP should not become a judges’ “consortium”.

He also announced that the PBC would convene an all-parties conference next month for reviewing the process for judges’ appointment.

The PBC official demanded that the superior judiciary should consider lawyers belonging to the minority communities for the vacant posts.

He added that women lawyers should be given proper representation in the bench.

“No woman judge has been elevated to the apex court in the last 70 years,” he noted.

The PBC vice chairman urged the parliamentary committee on judges’ appointment to make its role more effective in the process.

He criticised the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Munir Bhatti case that had made the role of the committee more ineffective.

Saqi said “politically opinionated” lawyers should be considered for the appointment of superior court judges. He contended that there was no neutral judge.

He urged the parliamentary committee to prepare a questionnaire to gauge the “intellectual commitment” of the nominee with the Constitution, on which they would take oath as a new judge, adding that this practice was being followed all over the world.

“Democratically sensitive judges should be appointed to the superior courts.”

Other senior lawyers have also urged the committee to obtain affidavits from nominees during interviews on how much were they loyal to democratic values. In November last year, the committee had amended its rules wherein it was stated that interviews of nominees would be conducted before their approval.