June 10, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 05, 1429

SUKKUR, June 9: An executive order and not constitutional amendment as stated by President Musharraf and his lawyers was necessary for restoration of judges, said deposed judge of the Sindh High Court Justice Sarmad Jalal Usmani in his address to a lawyers’ convention here on Monday.

An independent judiciary was needed for democracy and country’s solidarity, he said with the hope that the struggle will bore good results.

The shortage of judges had left the SHC with the backlog of cases which can be filled constitutionally as law allows an increase in their number through legal notification, said Justice Usmani adding that for Supreme Court it can be done only after an approval from Parliament.

He said seven-member bench of Supreme Court had declared the PCO null and void and as such non-functional judges could be made functional through an executive order. Deposed Justice Maqbool Baqar, Justice Abdul Rasheed Kalwar, Justice Athar Saeed and Justice Gulzar Ahmed attended the convention.