Lawyers to oppose ad-hoc, acting judges’ inductions in SC

A lawyers’ meeting on May 3 will discuss the appointment of ad-hoc, acting judges.

ISLAMABAD:

Lawyers’ apex bodies have expressed serious concern at the possible appointment of ad-hoc and acting judges to the Supreme Court (SC) and claimed it was against the independence of the judiciary and violated the resolutions passed by bar councils.

“Through a reliable source, we have found out that Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has moved to appoint two ad-hoc and an acting judge to constitute a larger bench for the hearing of an expected intra-court appeal to be filed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani against his conviction by the SC on April 26,” Akhtar Hussain, Vice-Chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), told The Express Tribune on Saturday.

“We have been consistently opposing the appointment of acting and ad-hoc judges and will resist any such move in the future,” he reiterated. An all Pakistan lawyers’ meeting had been called on May 3 in Lahore to discuss this issue, Hussain said.

Chairman of the Executive Committees of all provincial bar councils, presidents of all high court bar associations, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and its former presidents have been invited to attend the meeting to discuss the move and other issues being faced by lawyers, he added.

Since three years, lawyers have been demanding appointment of judges on vacant posts on permanent bases in high courts and the SC in order to ease backlog of cases in courts, he said.

Last year, the CJ appointed Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday as an ad-hoc judge after his retirement, which was opposed by the lawyers’ bodies, thus forcing the CJ to withdraw his proposal, he added.

Asma Jahangir, former president of the SCBA, also confirmed this development and said that the move was against the principles set by the SC itself and lawyers will resist it.

She claimed that senior judges of the high courts can be alleviated to SC, therefore; one vacant post can be filled this way. At present there are 16 judges in the SC, whereas there are 17 seats in total.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2012.