LAHORE: Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan hopes that the 26th constitutional amendment will help introduce transparency in the appointment of superior court judges.

The provincial house adopted a resolution hailing the amendment amid token walkout by the opposition PTI.

“The 26th constitutional amendment is the first step towards putting the Constitution on the right track. It will introduce transparency in the appointment of higher courts’ judges,” Mr Ahmed said here on Friday.

Talking to the media before the assembly session, the speaker said the mechanism for appointment of judges would improve and the trend of selecting the potential judges from certain law chambers would come to an end after the amendment.

Lauding retired chief justice Qazi Faez Isa for playing a supporting role in the passage of the amendment, the speaker said that he (ex-CJP) was wrongly criticised for denying the PTI its election symbol in the February 2024 vote, without considering that the party had been using delaying tactics for four years in the foreign funding case.

He said the PTI had been delaying the case to avoid audit of the donations given to it, and argued that the eight Supreme Court judges, who had favoured the party in the election symbol case, must have kept in view this fact before giving their verdict.

He lamented that certain judges had been inappropriately employing Clause 184(3) of the Constitution to oust elected governments.

Meanwhile, the house adopted a resolution hailing the amendment as a step that ensured trichotomy of powers and paved the way for judicial reforms as well as swift delivery of justice.

It said that through the amendment a signpost was crossed for the supremacy of the Constitution, while the dream of Charter of Democracy also materialised.

The resolution paid tribute to the political acumen of the political leadership for consulting all parties for the amendment and hoped that it would emerge as a symbol of Pakistan’s bright democratic future and political unity, while ending the politics of division.

Earlier, the opposition PTI staged a token walkout to what opposition leader Malik Ahmed Khan Bhachar said protest against the 26th amendment, attitude of the Punjab government, alleged police torture and forced disappearance of PTI MPs and workers by the police.

Alleging that PTI MPs were being picked up only for not changing their loyalties, he pledged to continue standing by the party founder Imran Khan come what may.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2024