KARACHI, Dec 10: The President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Hamid Khan, has called for administration of a new oath to the members of the superior judiciary under the 1973 Constitution.

Speaking to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights on the Human Rights Day on Tuesday, he said the three-year extension given to the judges of superior courts through the Legal Framework Order and the failure to swear them in under the revived Constitution amounted to contempt of court by the executive.

He recalled that the judges were given a new oath under the Provisional Constitution Order, 1999, in January 2000. In order to free them from allegiance to the PCO, they must be sworn in afresh under the Constitution.

A fresh oath might not have been necessary had they not taken oath to uphold the PCO.

Speaking on the occasion, LCHR President Aqil Lodhi deplored that while other constitutional functionaries had been sworn in under the 1973 Constitution, the judges had not been considered worthy of a fresh oath.

He was of the view that the judiciary would not be able to carry out its constitutional mandate without the judges taking a new oath in supersession of their oath under the PCO.