ISLAMABAD: Though lawyers belonging to Islamabad have long been calling for the appointment of a local lawyer as a judge of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC), the FSC law is silent on ‘accommodating’ persons from specific territories.

The lawyers’ bodies have been pursuing their case since 2013 but to no avail. At present, two of the seven posts of FSC judges are vacant.

According to Mohammad Waqas Malik, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association secretary general, since the FSC is located in Islamabad and several Islamabad-based lawyers plead their cases here, the court should appoint a local lawyer as its judge.

He said the lawyers’ bodies had taken up the matter with the senior judicial authorities of the country and also sent the names of some candidates having doctorate degrees in Shariah and Islamic laws to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan but they were ignored.

He said local lawyers or religious scholars may be inducted in the FSC in a similar way the judicial commission appointed lawyers from other provinces and territories in the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

Established in 1980, currently the FSC has five judges. Chief Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan had worked as the senior judge in the IHC on the quota of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Justice Fida Mohammad has been working in the FSC for three decades. Earlier, he served in Pakistan Air Force. He is a religious scholar.

Sheikh Najmul Hassan is the third judge and prior to his appointment in the FSC, he was working in the Lahore High Court (LHC).

Justice Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani belongs to Balochistan and remained the prosecutor general of the province prior to his induction in the FSC. Justice Mrs Ashraf Jahan became the FSC judge in October 2015.

She is the spouse of the incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, and earlier served as judge of the Sindh High Court (SHC).

According to former chief justice FSC Agha Rafique Ahmed Khan, traditionally the FSC never made any induction on the basis of regional quota. He said like the Supreme Court or the high court judges, the FSC judges were appointed through the Judicial Commission of Pakistan.

He, however, said the judicial commission appointed IHC judges from other provinces as according to the Islamabad High Court Act 2010, the judges can be appointed from different territories or provinces.

Section 3 of the IHC Act says “Islamabad High Court shall consist of a chief justice and six other judges to be appointed from the provinces and other territories of Pakistan in accordance with the Constitution.”

Dr Mohammad Aslam Khaki, a jurist consultant of the FSC, said unlike the IHC the FSC rules were silent over the region-specific appointments.

“If the local lawyers want a seat on the FSC, they need to take up the matter with the legislators to get the FSC rules amended,” he said.

The FSC is a constitutional court and there is no provision which can entitle a local lawyer to any vacant seat, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016