National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq during the Special Parliamentary Committee meeting informed them on Monday night that a final decision about the appointment of one of the top three Supreme Court judges as the next chief justice of Pakistan would be made soon.
Pakistan’s chief justice, Qazi Faez Isa will retire from the position of the highest judge on October 25. Initially, the most senior puisne judge was to take the position with Justice Mansoor Ali Shah set to become the chief justice.
But earlier today, the 26th Constitutional Amendment has already been passed into law.
Among many changes in the act, the maximum amendments have been made in Article 175A which provides for the procedure of appointments of the judges to the Supreme Court, High Courts and the Federal Shariat Court.
Amendments to clause 3 of Article 175A read that instead of the president appointing the “most senior judge of the Supreme Court” as the CJP, the top judge shall be “appointed on the recommendation of the Special Parliamentary Committee from amongst the three most senior” SC judges.
Sitting next to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial are Justices Munib Akhtar and Yahya Afridi.
The committee so formed shall make a recommendation of the nominee to the prime minister and the latter would subsequently forward the same to the president for appointment.
A new clause 3A has been added whereby the Special Parliamentary Committee shall comprise of the following twelve members, namely:
(i) eight members of the National Assembly; and
(ii) four members of the Senate:
Provided that, when the National Assembly stands dissolved, the total membership of the committee shall consist of the members from the Senate only mentioned in paragraph (ii) and the provisions of this Article shall, mutatis mutandis, apply,” the act adds.
Under clause 3B, the “parliamentary parties shall have proportional representation on the committee, based on their strength in Majlis-i-Shoora (parliament), to be nominated by their respective parliamentary leaders. The chairman and the speaker of the National Assembly, as the case may be, shall notify members of the committee”.
Under clause 3C, the Committee shall forward the nomination, “by majority of not less than two-thirds of its total membership, within 14 days prior to the retirement” of the CJP.
The act further adds: Provided that the first nomination under clause (3), after the 26th Amendment is in force, shall be sent “within three days prior to the retirement” of the top judge.
Following receipt of nominations from leaders of political parties based on strength in parliament, Sadiq today presented himself to the committee under clause 3B.
The names of the members are PML-N’s Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar and Shaista Pervaiz Malik; the PPPs Raja Pervez Ashraf, Senator Farooq H Naek and Naveed Qamar; Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Rana Ansar; Sunni Ittehad Council’s Hamid Raza, Barrister Ali Gohar and Senator Ali Zafar and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s Senator Kamran Murtaza.
Earlier, parliamentary party leaders of the above four parties had been asked to nominate their MNAs in the committee.
The NA speaker had also dispatched a letter to Senate Chairman Yousuf Raza Gilani asking for the nominations of the four senators for the committee.
The CJP’s tenure has been capped at maximum three years under more judicial reforms.
Article 179, therefore now reads: “A judge of the Supreme Court shall hold office until he attains the age of 65 years, unless he sooner resigns or is removed from office in accordance with the Constitution.”.
The above carries the riders that the CJP’s term “shall be three years or unless he sooner resigns or attains the age of 65 years or is removed from his office in accordance with the Constitution, whichever is earlier”, and further provided that the top judge, “on completion of his term of three years, shall stand retired notwithstanding his age of superannuation”.
Earlier in the day, the Karachi Bar Association condemned the new constitutional amendment and demanded that there was “no justifiable reason to deny the appointment of Justice Mansoor Ali Shah” as the next chief justice, and demanded his nomination and notification for the post.