ISLAMABAD: Judges dealing with high profile cases in special courts are paid less that the members working in tribunals and dealing with routine matters.

At present, the judges of special courts are dealing with a number of high profile cases including the Mumbai attack case, the Benazir murder case, the assets reference of former President Asif Ali Zardari, Ayyan Ali’s money laundering case, the ephedrine case, corruption cases of politicians and high profile terrorist cases.

On the other hand, tribunals deal with a limited number of cases and according to an official working in the Customs, Excise and Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, the tribunal has a few pending cases and instead of three judges, they can be decided by a single member in the federal capital.

The difference between salaries was disclosed in a written statement submitted to the lower house by the Ministry of Law and Justice in reply to a question by MNA Mir Aijaz Jakhrani, who had sought details of the salaries of judges working in special courts and tribunals.

Tribunal members are paid Rs100,000 more, chairman of the FST earns Rs1 million per month

According to the law ministry, the judges working Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATC), Accountability Court, Control of Narcotics Substance Court (CNS), Banking Court, Special (FIA) Court, the custom and taxation and Anti-Smuggling Courts are paid just over Rs200,000 a month.

This includes a Rs63,780 basic salary, Rs77,640 special judicial allowance, Rs11,646 house rent allowance, Rs5,176 medical allowance, Rs1,350 senior post allowance, Rs700 as entertainment allowance, Rs12,000 orderly allowance, Rs18,868 ad-hoc allowance and Rs12,000 deputation allowance.

Meanwhile, members working in Revenue, Custom Appellate Tribunal and Intellectual Property Tribunals are paid over Rs300,000 per month.

In addition to the basic salary and other allowances, they are also paid Rs77,430 as monetisation allowance.

And though the salary and other monthly benefits for the members of the Federal Services Tribunal (FST), which deals with services related matters of government employees, are almost the same as what judges of the special courts are paid, the FTS chairman draws over Rs1 million per month. His salary and other benefits include a basic pay of Rs Rs66,908, house rent allowance of Rs68,000, Superior Judicial Allowance of Rs30,6278 and Rs55,228 as medical allowance.

The criteria for appointing judges for a special court are tougher than those for appointments in tribunals. In the special courts, the federal government appoints serving sessions’ judges as presiding officers for ATC, CNS, FIA, Banking and other courts, with the consent of the chief justice of the respective high court.

While the government may appoint anyone in a tribunal preferably with a background in law and it is also said that the majority of these appointments are made due to political affiliations.

A serving district and sessions’ judge who has also worked as a special judge in the ATC sad that in addition to the favoured lawyers and retired judges, the government can appoint any one as a presiding officer of a tribunal. He said these appointments should have been made from officers working in the judicial service of the provinces and federal capital.

He pointed out that the Supreme Court had recently directed the federal government to appoint members of a tribunal with the concurrence of the chief justice of the high court concerned.

Akhtar Awan, who had served as chairman of an appellate tribunal in Islamabad, suggested that tribunal members, including the chairman, should not be answerable to the federal government and that they should be given the autonomy to decide matters in accordance with the law.

Published in Dawn November 26th, 2016