ISLAMABAD: In an emergency meeting, the executive committee of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Saturday assailed what it called ineffective role being played in the appointment of superior court judges by a parliamentary committee.

The meeting was called by the committee’s chairman, Mian Abbas Ahmed, to discuss the recent appointment of additional judges of the Sindh High Court (SHC) and the Balochistan High Court (BHC) and to inquire about the status of the proposed amendments suggested by the PBC in the Judicial Commission Rules 2010.

The Judicial Commission (JC) is already seized with the proposed amendments. Under the meeting’s agenda, the functioning of the Parliamentary Committee (PC) on the Appointment of Judges was also supposed to be discussed.

The JC is headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and suggests names for the appointment of judges in the superior judiciary whereas the eight-member PC comprising members of the National Assembly and Senate finalises whatever recommendations are forwarded by the JC. Both the high-powered bodies were constituted under Article 175 of the constitution after the 19th amendment.

The meeting of the PBC’s executive committee was held in the office of the PBC situated on the Supreme Court premises at which former Supreme Court Bar Association president Yaseen Azad, who is not a member of the committee but represents PBC in the JC, was specially invited to apprise it about the fate of the proposed amendments.

Mian Abbas told Dawn that Yaseen Azad briefed the meeting on how he opposed during the deliberations of a JC meeting in which the names of eight judges were finalised for their appointment as additional judges of the SHC and three judges in the BHC. President Asif Ali Zardari has already approved the names.

A source privy to the development told Dawn that the meeting expressed its disappointment over the role being played by the PC and suggested that either the PC should be given complete power to independently make decisions or its role be erased completely through amendment in the constitution.

They were of the view that the PC should apply its independent mind instead of approving whatever recommendation the JC forwards to it. Sensing the unrest among the legal fraternity, especially against the backdrop of the last month’s complete strike in Quetta and passing of resolution on the appointment of three judges in the BHC PML-N Senator Rafiq Rajwana, who is a member of the PC, had formed a sub-committee of three practising lawyers and parliamentarians to recommend suggestions for making the PC more effective especially when the role of the JC is more dominant than the PC.

In addition to him other members of the sub-committee are PML-N’s National Assembly member Chaudhry Bashir Virk and PPP Senator Farooq. H. Naek.