ISLAMABAD: The formation of a judicial commission for appointment of judges formally began on Monday with the nomination of Justice (retd) Ali Hussain Qazalbash as a member of the commission for a two-year term.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammmad Chaudhry chaired a meeting here on Monday to make the commission operational under Article 175-A of the Constitution inserted via the 18th Amendment. The Supreme Court chief justice, who is also chairman of the commission, held a meeting with two senior judges of the apex court, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, and consulted them for the nomination of a former Supreme Court judge as member of the commission under Article 175-A(2)(iii) which states: “A former chief justice or a former judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to be nominated by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, in consultation with two member judges, for a term of two years.”
The country’s three top adjudicators unanimously resolved to nominate Justice (retd) Ali Hassan Qazalbash.
Similarly, while discussing the issue of retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Khawaja Muhammad Sharif on December 8, the commission nominated Justice (retd) Allah Nawaz, former LHC chief justice, as a one-time member to take part in Judicial Commission deliberations for nominating new chief justice of the LHC.
Under 175-A(8): “The commission by majority of its total membership, shall nominate to the parliamentary committee one person for each vacancy of a judge in the Supreme Court, a high court or the Federal Shariat Court, as the case may be.”
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has given the go-ahead signal to chief justices of all high courts and the Federal Shariat Court to take steps for the formation of the National Judicial Commission.
Likewise, letters have also been written to the Pakistan Bar Council and four provincial bar councils for nominating senior advocates. They have also been asked to forward names of the nominees to the Supreme Court registrar to finalise its formation and for its notification in the Gazette of Pakistan.
On Thursday last week, the Supreme Court had sent back the newly-inserted Article 175-A for parliamentary review.
In its interim order, the court wrote that Article 175-A should be amended in a manner that “in all cases of an anticipated or actual vacancy a meeting of the Judicial Commission shall be convened by the Chief Justice of Pakistan in his capacity as its chairman and the names of candidates for appointment to the Supreme Court shall be initiated by him, of the Federal Shariat Court by the Chief Justice of the said court and of the high courts by the respective chief justices”.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 26th, 2010.
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