LAHORE: The Punjab Bar Council (PbBC) has called for a suo motu notice urging Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa to order an inquiry into leaked video of an accountability court’s judge wherein he reportedly confessed to have convicted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif under coercion.

In a statement issued on Monday, PbBC vice chairman Shahnaz Ismail Gujjar said the video of accountability court judge Arshad Malik put a big question mark not only on the legitimacy of the conviction awarded to Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family but the cases pending against other politicians.

“Under the given circumstances fingers being raised on the role of present judiciary are not uncalled for,” he said and added that promotion of Arshad Malik as district & sessions judge and his subsequent appointment in accountability court had also not been done in a transparent manner.

Mr Gujjar said the judge in-question violated [judges] code of conduct by visiting the court on Sunday, a holiday, only to issue a press release in his defence. Doubting the claim of the judge about being attempted to be bribed by the Sharif family, he said the trial judge could have informed the inspection judge, a SC judge in this case, or the Islamabad High Court chief justice if there were such attempts.

The vice chairman stated that the situation after the leak of the trial judge’s video direly required a suo motu notice by the chief justice of Pakistan and a detailed inquiry into it so that the questions being raised on the role of the institution of judiciary could be answered.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2019