JCP to review tenure of CB

ISLAMABAD:

A crucial meeting of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP), chaired by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, will be held on June 19 in the Supreme Court building.

The meeting will discuss extending the tenure of constitutional benches.

The matter was last addressed in the commission's session on December 21, 2024, where a majority approved a six-month extension for the nominated judges of the Supreme Court's constitutional benches.

At present, 15 judges have been working for the constitutional benches. Among them, a committee led by Justice Aminuddin Khan and comprising Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Ali Mazahar selects judges for the particular constitutional benches.

Performance of CB

The present CB led by Justice Aminuddin Khan has been able to issue only three reported judgement since it's creation through 26th constitutional amendment.

The CB had issued first reported judgement in January. This two-page decision was related to the jurisdiction of CB itself. The order had held that regular benches could not hear matters related to the interpretation of law and constitution.

Secondly, reported short order has been passed in military courts case. Likewise, another reported judgement was authored by Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail.

Lawyers are wondering as who will judge the performance of the constitutional bench. They are also raising question that why Justice Mandokhail is not being given independent CB.

A lawyer says that the CB started by spending two months studiously avoiding the 26th Amendment case in favour of hearing cases of no importance which had already become infructuous.

"It followed that by spending four months almost exclusively on the military courts case before passing a verdict which must surely have pleased the establishment. The only other order of note it passed in that period was to ensure that no regular bench of the Supreme Court could hear any case of importance.

"Next, it took up the reserved seats review case in which most of the original judges were excluded and the few who were included seemed to have suddenly, and inexplicably, become of the opposite view from day one", says the lawyer.

He said that when the idea of a CB elected by politicians was first floated; many said such a bench was fundamentally against the idea of judicial independence and predicted it would reduce the credibility of the SC to nothing. Nonetheless, judges in Pakistan have sometimes defied predictions. "Unfortunately, the CB's performance thus far has proved this is not one of those times."

He also said that the stated rationale of the CB at the time of the 26th Amendment was to improve the constitutional jurisprudence of the SC. In its first six months, the number of detailed judgments it has issued can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And all of them have tended to take out jurisprudence backwards and closer to the desires of the establishment," he adds.