Gilani names Tarar for body on judges’ appointment

PPP’s Farooq Hamid Naek also nominated as member of the committee

ISLAMABAD:

PPP's Yousuf Raza Gilani, the opposition leader in the Senate, on Wednesday nominated PML-N Senator Azam Nazir Tarar as a member of the opposition in the parliamentary committee on the appointment of judges to the superior courts – days after the two key opposition parties locked horns over the slot currently being held by the former premier.

Gilani nominated PPP’s Farooq Hamid Naek and Tarar to represent the opposition in the parliamentary body.

The former PM has forwarded the names of both the senators to the Senate secretary.

“We can’t ostracise him [Tarar],” a senior PPP senator told The Express Tribune in response to a query about whether or not his party's objection to Tarar’s name was only limited to the office of the opposition leader in Senate.

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The PPP leadership had rejected Tarar’s name when PML-N nominated him as the joint candidate of the opposition alliance -- Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) -- in the upper house of parliament.

The party noted that Tarar had represented accused parties in the Benazir Bhutto murder case in the past and he was not acceptable to the PPP.

“The PML-N has nominated him [Tarar] to represent them,” the PPP senator said.

“Accepting him [Tarar] as the leader of the opposition would have meant that he would represented us,” he added.

The PPP has been saying that its party leadership had recorded its protest over Tarar’s nomination.

However, the PML-N leadership had maintained that it was a “settled issue” for it and there could be no talks on the issue.

According to the Supreme Court website, the Chief Justice of Pakistan and each of other judges shall be appointed by the president in accordance with Article 175A, inserted through 18th and 19th Constitutional amendments.

These Constitutional amendments have devised a new scheme for the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, the Federal Shariat Court and high courts.

The Constitutional amendments provide for the formation of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan and a parliamentary committee.

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The committee will comprise of eight members with equal membership from the treasury and opposition benches as well as of two houses and nominations would be made by the leader of the house and the leader of the opposition.

The JCP shall nominate a name for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court in majority after evaluating professional competency and antecedents and then the recommendations are sent to the parliamentary committee.

The committee after receiving the nomination from the commission, may confirm or deny the nominee by majority of its total membership within 14 days.

The differences over Tarar’s name had reached to the extent that former president Asif Ali Zardari telephoned PML-N’s ex-finance minister Ishaq Dar, who is with ex-premier Nawaz Sharif in London, and asked him to convey to Sharif that he should consider giving the slot to Gilani or change the candidate.

PML-N officials were asked to comment on the development but they did not till the filing of this report.