ISLAMABAD, April 5: The Supreme Court was moved on Thursday to seek an authoritative declaration not to use the term “non-functional” for Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry who is facing a reference before the Supreme Judicial Council.
Filed under fundamental rights, Barrister Zille Huma moved the petition before the apex court on behalf of Association of Pakistan Lawyers (UK) chairman Amjad Malik.
The petitioner stated that the term non-functional could not be used for the chief justice because it was only the office of the chief justice, being the custodian and guardian of justice and rule of law, which upheld the supremacy of the Constitution.
The petition, it seems, has been filed in the backdrop of widely used terms like “non-functional” and “suspended” by both electronic and print media and government functionaries during different talk-shows and press statements.
The federal government through the secretary for law and the president’s secretariat through the Awan-i-Sadr secretary are respondents in the petition.
The petitioner has also requested the apex court to form a larger bench and settle the actual interpretation of Article 209 of the Constitution (SJC) to help avoiding media trial of the sitting chief justice as well as future chief justices.
If the controversy was not settled, the petitioner feared, Article 209 would always be used as a ploy to remove proactive chief justices in future. This would also create serious legal questions for the independence of judiciary and safety of the work and well-being of judges of the superior judiciary.
The petitioner also sought a direction from the apex court to remove restraints on the chief justice and allow him and his family members to move freely, restore his access to the Supreme Court and reinstate his protocol and privileges.
JUDGES MEET: Supreme Court judges on Thursday held an informal meeting to review the post-March 9 situation in the country after the filing of a reference before the Supreme Judicial Council against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
Though the legal circles believed that the meeting was in fact a full court meeting of the apex court judges, the Supreme Court administration insisted that it was an informal meeting.
An informed source told Dawn that all the judges, except one, met in the main meeting room of the Supreme Court for a while with Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas in the chair.
The judges discussed the spontaneous public reaction, especially the stand taken by lawyers since the filing of the reference against the chief justice.
