ISLAMABAD: An extraordinary session of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, chaired by Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk, partially accepted a long-standing demand of the lawyers’ community when it agreed to share with the bar, in advance, the names of candidates being considered for elevation as judges of the high court.

“I think it is a great success and a breaking of the ice, since the amendments proposed by the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) had been pending before the commission since Feb 2013, when former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was in office,” Former president Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Yasin Azad told Dawn on Saturday after attending the commission meeting.

Mr Azad represents the lawyers’ community on the commission in his capacity as a PBC member. The PBC is the premier body that oversees the affairs of the legal fraternity in the country.

Apart from the chief justice and senior judges of the Supreme Court, the meeting was also attended by the chief justices of the five high courts, federal and provincial law ministers, the attorney general and advocate generals of the respective provinces and representatives of provincial bar councils.

High court chief justices to share with the bar names being considered for elevation as judges

Now, chief justices of the high courts will conduct an informal consultation with the PBC and members of the provincial bar councils before forwarding names for elevation as judges, prior to future meetings of the JC, Mr Azad told Dawn.

Different lawyers’ bodies had been campaigning for a special meeting of the Judicial Commission to exclusively consider PBC’s proposals for amending the Judicial Commission Rules, 2010.

The need to consider the proposals to amend rules that give chief justices the exclusive right to nominate individuals to be appointed superior court judges became all the more necessary after the Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA) adopted a hard hitting resolution on Oct 25. In it, they demanded withdrawal of judges picked by the JC in its Oct 17 meeting. The resolution also called for improvements in the procedure for judges’ appointment under Article 175A of the Constitution.

A delegation, led by PHCBA president Isa Khan also met then-Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Kamran Murtaza, as well as Parliamentary Committee (PC) Chairman Naveed Qamar on Oct 29 to discuss their demands.

In a meeting on Feb 2, 2013, the PBC had proposed amendments to different sections of the Judicial Commission Rules of 2010, highlighting the need for high court chief justices to engage in meaningful and purposeful consultation with a PBC representative prior to proposing names for elevation. The PBC also held that any member of the commission should have the right to propose names for the appointment of judges in commission meetings.

Legal practitioners believe that lawyers’ bodies such as the PBC, SCBA or the provincial bar councils are best placed to judge the competence, credibility, calibre and antecedents of persons being considered to become judges of the high court or the Supreme Court.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2014