ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Judicial Council’s (SJC) recommendations of Oct 2018 against former Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui were vague, arbitrary, highly opinionated, one-sided and without due process, senior counsel Hamid Khan said on Tuesday.

“There must be specific allegations to show a judge violated certain provisions of the code of conduct for judges,” he argued before a five-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial.

The bench had taken up an appeal by former judge Shaukat Siddiqui against the SJC’s opinion as well as an Oct 11, 2018, notification under which he was removed as a superior court judge over a speech at the District Bar Association, Rawalpindi, in July of the same year.

In its recommendations, the SJC had ruled that Justice Siddiqui had not only violated certain provisions of the code of conduct, but had also displayed conduct unbecoming of his stature and thus violated the traditional requirements of behaviour expected of a superior court judge.

On Tuesday, the counsel contended that the entire code of conduct for judges was extremely vague and nothing had been defined in explicit terms to enable judges to know clearly as to what constitutes “conduct unbecoming of a judge” and what was meant by “misconduct”.

The SJC’s recommendations were based on “mere perceptions” against Justice Siddiqui, Hamid Khan argued.

In its report, the SJC had explained that the code of conduct insisted upon the highest qualities of intellect and character and spoke of patterns of behaviour which were the hallmark of a judge.

The recommendations stated that it may not be possible to lay down an exhaustive list of such qualities or behaviour and that was why the code of conduct only makes an attempt to indicate certain traditional req­u­irements of behaviour, leaving it to the SJC to consider whether an alleged conduct of the judge went against the qualities and traditional behaviour expected of a judge or not.

Hamid Khan argued that except for the Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Qazi Faez Isa cases, the country’s jurisprudence did not offer many judgements on the removal of superior court judges. “The case at hand has a long-term impact on the future of judiciary. Therefore it should be discussed threadbare by touching on all important points,” the counsel emphasised.

The court, however, asked the counsel to submit his formulations so that the bench could understand what issues the petitioner wanted to highlight.

The court adjourned the hearing till March 29.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2022