SC wants list of Article 184(3) cases

The three-member committee of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Qazi Faez Isa, on Friday made a major decision and ordered to prepare a list of cases under Article 184(3) of the Constitution.

Article 184(3) gives the apex court the extraordinary power to assume jurisdiction over any “question of public importance with reference to the enforcement of any fundamental right”. The SC may assert jurisdiction either on the basis of a petition filed in the court by any party, or on its own motion referred to as a suo motu notice.

According to sources, the SC registrar has been ordered to prepare the list of the cases under Article 184(3).

The committee has also ordered the SC registrar to compile a list of the cases related to the interpretation of the Constitution.

Five-judge larger benches of the top court will be formed for hearing constitutional cases.
Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Ijazul Ahsan also attended the meeting of the committee.

It has been learnt that the list of all pending 184(3) cases has already been compiled. Some of them are too old; many may have become infructuous; and some of them are very fresh and relevant. It is expected that some relevant cases would be fixed for hearing early.

Last month, Barrister Zafarullah Khan, a member of the PML-N, approached the SC seeking an appropriate order regarding the proper exercise of the court’s original constitutional jurisdiction under Article 184 (3).

Moving a constitutional petition, Khan requested the court to pass judgment and issue appropriate orders in connection with objective, just, fair, and transparent criteria for the constitution of benches as well as fair guidelines for hearing of cases in the superior courts.

In Pakistan, the rise of suo motu under Article 184(3) started with the advent of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the former CJP.  He exercised unbridled judicial powers under the umbrella of suo motu that eventually threatened the rule of law. His successor, Saqib Nisar, took it to another level while many other CJPs preferred restraint.

For a long time, there have been rising concerns and fears among the bureaucracy, legislatures and other power brokers of the country that the judiciary was overstepping its legal boundaries – before CJP Isa took over as the top judge-- by regularly taking suo motu notices, based more on political vendetta rather than on a bona fide legal interpretation of matters of “public importance”.

Critics believed that earlier, the SC had been favouring the PTI through suo motu notices by denying PML-N members the right to a fair trial. The “disqualification” judgments of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif was a case in point.