PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council (KPBC) on Tuesday announced that the lawyers would boycott courts across the province today (Wednesday) against the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) for violating the principle of seniority for fresh elevation of judges to the Supreme Court.

It also voiced concern about the JCP ignoring senior judges of the Peshawar High Court for elevation to the apex court in its Oct 24 meeting.

According to a news release issued by KPBC vice-chairman Mohammad Ali Khan Jadoon and its executive committee’s chairman, Mohammad Ilyas Khan, the council members unanimously requested the relevant parliamentary committee to turn down the recent recommendations by the JCP from the provinces of Sindh and Punjab for what they called being against the settled principle of seniority.

“Cognisant of the fact that over the past many years the principle of seniority has been persistently violated by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan while making appointment of the judges in the Supreme Court and in this way it is mostly the judges from smaller provinces particularly the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who have been made the victims of injustice,” the council said.

It added that realising that after the passage of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, there were many cases, which were or would be initiated in the Supreme Court between the centre and the federating unit or among two or more federating units and unless all federating units had equal number of judges in the apex court full compliance to the constitution was very seriously doubted.

The council said it was fully conscious that the federation and its Constitution could only be adhered to in its letter and true spirit by safeguarding the interests of all federating units by an independent Supreme Court with equal representation from all the federating units.

It demanded of the federal government to immediately promulgate proper legislation for granting equal representation to all federating units and provinces in the Supreme Court and making appointment of an equal number of judges from all federating units.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2022