ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) in its meeting on Saturday constituted a two-member committee to prepare draft rules and procedures for accountability of judges.

The meeting was presided over by Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, also the chairman of the council. It was attended by Justice Rana Bhagwandas and Justice Javed Iqbal of the SC, Chief Justice Lahore High Court, Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry; Chief Justice Peshawar High Court, Justice Tariq Pervez; and Registrar SC Dr Faqir Hussain.

Justice Bhagwandas and Justice Iqbal are the members of the committee, constituted by the council after realizing the need to institutionalize the SJC by making it operative as an effective forum of accountability of judges.

The council also approved a proposal to amend the code of conduct for judges to make it more elaborate, objective and specific and assigned the task of preparing a draft of amendments to the chief justice Lahore High Court.

The council observed that following amendments to Article 209 of the constitution under the 17th amendment, wherein suo motu power of initiating action was conferred on the council, the SJC had to prepare and adopt procedures and set up institutional mechanism for receiving complaints against judges and deciding them.

The SJC under article 209 of the constitution had been empowered to formalize a code of conduct to be observed by judges of the supreme and high courts, it observed.

The council felt the need to take notice of incidents of inefficiency or corruption in the judiciary and promptly deal with them according to law.

However, it also stressed the need for checking false and frivolous complaints being filed to malign individual judges of the superior judiciary.

The council directed its secretary/registrar SC to forward a copy of the existing code of the conduct to judges of supreme and high courts for implementation.

The council will meet soon to consider the two drafts.

Meanwhile, legal experts have welcomed the SJC meeting and described it as a good sign. Earlier, bar associations and lawyers’ organizations had been demanding reactivation of the council for accountability of judges.