PM calls allies’ meeting amid govt-CJP face-off

Govt likely to persist with its full-court demand

ISLAMABAD:

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday invited all the allied parties in the federal government for a meeting on April 1 (today) at the PM House to discuss the deepening judicial crisis compounding challenges for a government already faced by political and economic crises.

The government was likely to persist with its full-court demand even after Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial did not budge from his earlier stance, turning down the attorney general for Pakistan’s (AGP) request to form a full court to hear the matter of holding elections in Punjab within the constitutional limit of 90 days.

The prime minister, who would attend the meeting via Zoom from Lahore, called the huddle of allies at a time when the top court’s bench was being disbanded and reconstituted on a regular basis in connection with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) petition against the postponement of elections in Punjab.

A key Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) minister said that the government would deliberate on the current political situation, the upcoming elections in line with the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision and the SC proceedings, as well as the role of the CJP and the top court, saying the meeting had been called as the government believed in moving ahead with its allies’ consent.

The coalition government had allegedly been accusing the judiciary of “bench-fixing” in crucial cases, continuously giving “discriminatory” judgments and handing out one interpretation of the Constitution to PTI chief Imran Khan, and another to the ruling alliance.

The PML-N led federal government had been demanding the formation of a full court to decide the matter while some key leaders of the ruling party had openly criticised some senior judges, including the CJP, for their alleged impartiality.

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Even PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif held a news conference in London on Friday to demand a full court to decide the matter of elections, saying that whatever the full court decided, would be acceptable to all. He wondered that when the incumbent three-member bench was not acceptable then how could its decision be accepted.

Recently, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) led by CJP Bandial was formed to hear the PTI’s petition against the ECP’s March 22 notification, announcing the postponement of elections in Punjab, earlier scheduled for April 30, 2023.

However, the federal government and the CJP came face to face after the government passed a bill – The Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill, 2023 – from the National Assembly (NA) and the Senate clipping CJP Bandial’s powers to initiate suo motu proceedings and to constitute benches on his own, proposing that a three-member committee should decide such matters.

Soon after the bills sailed through from both houses, an SC bench held that all cases that various benches were hearing under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution be postponed until amendments were made in the Supreme Court Rules 1980 regarding the discretionary powers of the CJP.

The three-judge led by Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Shahid Waheed issued the verdict with a vote of two to one with the dissenting note by Justice Waheed.

Next, the CJP through the SC registrar issued a circular and “disregarded” the judgment issued by Justice Isa and Justice Aminuddin, in which they had called for the postponement of suo motu matters until amendments were made to the SC Rules 1980 regarding the country’s top judge’s discretionary powers to form benches.

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The government had been calling the CJP to put his house in order, arguing that the nine-member bench had come down to three and it was time that the CJP constituted a full court so that collective wisdom of the top court decided the election matter once and for all.

The CJP, however, so far refused to constitute a full court and was all set to take up the matter on coming Monday. CJP Bandial said that neither law nor rules talked about the composition of a full court and the court would not “go back” to the start as the matter was being heard for days now.

On the one hand, PM Shehbaz had called a meeting while, on the other, Justice Bandial said in the courtroom on Friday that he would conduct some meetings after the hearing, hoping: “Monday’s sun would rise with good news.”