May 22, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429

ISLAMABAD, May 21: Pakistan Lawyers’ Forum chief A.K. Dogar has drafted a private bill seeking reinstatement of the deposed judges and says he plans to seek support of parliamentarians of different parties for tabling it in the National Assembly.

“The deposed judges cannot be reinstated through an executive order or parliamentary resolution,” Mr Dogar told reporters at the Supreme Court.

The Lawyers’ Forum chief said he had drafted his bill for early reinstatement of the judges and he would soon meet leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-N and Jamaat-i-Islami.

The two-page draft titled ‘Re-occupation of Office (Judges) Act 2008’, which seeks to override all relevant laws, states that the superior court judges who were ‘separated’ unconstitutionally from their offices on Nov 3, 2007, when President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency, should be deemed to be holding their offices under the Constitution.

It says that the judges who took the oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) and the Schedule to Oath of Office (Judges) Order 2007 should be considered as having acted against Article 178 of the Constitution (Oath of Office). Therefore, they should be deemed to have lost their right to hold office and liable to be proceeded against under Article 209 (Supreme Judicial Council) after inquiry and show-cause notice.

The judges, pending proceedings before the SJC, should remain away from their offices and ad hoc judges should be appointed to fill their seats on a temporary basis.

The President’s Order 5 of 2007 (Constitution Amendment Order 2007) and the Order 6 (Constitutional Second Amendment Order 2007), under which six amendments were made to the Constitution a day before the lifting of the emergency, have neither been adopted nor validated by parliament under Articles 238 and 239 and thus have not become part of the Constitution, the draft says.

The Lawyers’ Forum chief said the bill could be passed by simple majority.

He said the president was bound to act in accordance with an advice of the cabinet under Article 48 of the Constitution but he could withhold his assent under some pretext to stop issuance of a notification if the advice of the cabinet was merely in the form of an executive order, not founded on the will of the legislature.