The government announced the names of its four members after a meeting between President Zardari and PM Gilani.—APP/File photo

ISLAMABAD: After many a hiccup, including petitions filed in the Supreme Court, the eight-member Parliamentary Committee constituted under the 18th Amendment was finally completed on Tuesday when the government announced the names of its members after a meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. The two government nominees from the National Assembly are Aftab Shaban Mirani from Sindh and Asma Arbab Alamgir from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Their names were suggested at the meeting by the prime minister.

Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari from Punjab and Sabir Baloch from Balochistan were nominated as treasury members from the Senate.

As a result, the requirements of Article 175-A of the Constitution which calls for a seven-member Judicial Commission to appoint judges for the Supreme Court and 11 members needed to appoint judges for high courts have been met.

The first meeting of the PC will be held on Nov 22.

“The names have been chosen to give representation to the provinces and also to women,” president’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.

But he did not explain why coalition partners have not been accommodated in the committee.

PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and PML-N’s Ishaq Dar from the Senate and Sardar Mehtab Abbasi (PML-N) and Ghaus Bux Mehar (PML-Q) from the National Assembly will represent the opposition in the committee.

The first task to be taken up by the PC will be to discuss the nomination of Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry as chief justice of the Lahore High Court.

He will succeed incumbent Chief Justice Khawaja Mohammad Sharif who reaches superannuation on Dec 8. His name was approved by the Judicial Commission at a meeting on Nov 13.

Article 175-A (12) requires the PC to confirm, on receipt of the nomination from the JC, a nominee by a majority of its total members within 14 days, failing which the nomination will deem to have been confirmed.

If the PC fails to confirm the nomination by a three-fourth majority of its total membership within the stipulated period, the JC can send another nomination.

A 17-judge SC bench in its interim short order on petitions challenging the 18th Amendment said: “If the recommendation of the JC in favour of a candidate for judgeship is not agreed by the PC, it shall give sound reasons and refer it back to the JC for reconsideration.

Upon considering the reasons if the JC again reiterates the recommendation, it shall be final and the president shall make the appointment accordingly.”

The rules formulated by the JC in its first meeting require the PC to hold its meeting in camera and a record of the proceedings will be prepared and maintained by the PC secretary duly certified by the chairman.

Legal experts are of the opinion that the additional measures will bring about more transparency in the appointment of superior court judges.

“That was the reason why the 1996 Al-Jihad Trust case came,” Advocate Chaudhry Faisal Hussain said, adding that a good thing about the new system was that everybody would know in advance who was going to be elevated to the superior judiciary.

“Whenever any appointment was made in the superior judiciary under the substituted mechanism of appointments, members of the legal fraternity used to figure out links between the appointee and some influential law chamber or top military officers or a senior judge,” senior counsel Justice (retd) Tariq Mehmood said.

Although he conceded that an ideal system existed nowhere, he stressed the need for demonstrating extra caution to make the new mode of appointment successful.

He suggested that the two most senior Supreme Court judges in the JC should also give their input by suggesting the names for appointment as judges, instead of only the Chief Justice of Pakistan initiating the names.

Advocate Naseer Ahmed Chaudhry is not happy with the new method. He said it was too tedious and had many drawbacks.

First of all, he explained, the appointment of judges was a function of the executive, which had now been excluded from the process. This, he said, negated the principle of rule through parliament of which the prime minister was the principal officer.

“The process also negates the concept of provincial autonomy because the appointment has gone to the hands of an entity which is federal in character with the chief minister of a province standing excluded altogether. I have fears that this will be difficult to work with,” Advocate Naseer said.

However, he expressed the hope that vacancies in the high courts would be finalised urgently because almost all of them were functioning with one-third of the total strength.

The same would be done for the Islamabad High Court which has been re-established but is without a judge.