Justice Ayesha removed from constitutional bench for intra-court appeals on military trials

The Supreme Court’s three-member constitutional committee has removed Justice Ayesha Malik from the seven-member constitutional bench hearing intra-court appeals related to military court trials of May 9 suspects.

The third meeting of the constitutional committee, chaired by Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, was held with Justices Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Muhammad Ali Mazhar also in attendance, Express News reported.

Minutes from the meeting have been released.

During the meeting, the scheduling of cases related to civilian trials in military courts was reviewed.

According to the minutes, Justice Ayesha Malik had already heard the May 9 military courts case. Consequently, the appeal against the decision remains pending before a seven-member intra-court appeal bench, which will now hear the case.

The matter concerning military courts has been referred to the Judicial Commission, which will nominate the seventh member for the bench.

The meeting decided to establish a separate branch for constitutional cases and to implement green tagging for categorising such cases.

It was also decided that under Article 186-A, the Supreme Court has the authority to transfer cases from one High Court to another.

Furthermore, the constitutional bench judges will hear five chamber appeals daily, and to manage the growing workload, the nominated constitutional judges will seek the assistance of civil judges.

The responsibility for the procedures and regulations of the constitutional bench has been assigned to the Registrar. Based on the advice of Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, the Registrar of the Supreme Court will establish the rules and regulations.

The Constitutional Bench Committee has requested the assistance of a civil judge to reduce the workload. Until the rules are finalised, all urgent hearing requests will be presented to the Constitutional Bench Committee.

The Supreme Court may refer cases with substantial constitutional and legal questions to the Constitutional Bench. The judges' committee has decided to establish a separate branch within the Supreme Court for the Constitutional Bench.