Judicial commission: Four names approved for Supreme Court

NJP waits for confirmation from parliamentary committee.

ISLAMABAD: The National Judicial Commission (NJP) on Thursday approved the chief justices of the Lahore and Peshawar High Court, one incumbent judge and one retired judge from Sindh High Court to fill the four vacant seats in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The commission, chaired by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, was set up under the 18th amendment to appoint the superior judiciary.

The NJP has proposed Chief Justice Lahore High Court (LHC) Ejaz Chaudhry, Chief Justice Peshawar High Court (PHC) Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Gulzar Ahmed from the Sindh High Court (SHC) and Justice (retd) Athar Sayed to the eight-member parliamentary committee which has the authority to confirm the appointments.

To fill the gaps which would be created as a knock-on effect, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed’s name has been approved for the position of Chief Justice of the LHC and Justice Dost Muhammed has been approved for Chief Justice of the PHC.

The commission has forwarded three more names, nominating them as the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges for the parliamentary committee on judges’ appointment: Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui (Punjab), Azeem Afridi (Fata) and Noorul Haq Qureshi (Sindh) for IHC judges.

According to the Islamabad High Court Act 2010, the IHC must have a chief justice and six other judges, with one from each province, one from the capital and one from the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas. Currently, there are three judges in the IHC: Chief Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman, Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan from Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Justice Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi from Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2011.