LAHORE, May 15: The Federal Shariat Court ‘ceased’ to exist and its seven judges have stopped functioning because it has no chief justice since May 8 when Chief Justice Ejaz Yousuf retired. This is the first time since the court was established under Article 203 of the 1973 Constitution in 1980 that it has become non-functional in the absence of the chief justice.

Article 203(C) of the Constitution provides that the FSC shall work with a chief justice and seven other judges essentially Muslim. Constitutional experts interpret the provision makes the functioning of the court conditional with a chief justice without whom the court cannot work.

Sources told Dawn on Monday that the court had recommended that Justice S A Rabbani of the same court be appointed as acting chief justice till the nomination of a permanent chief justice. A summary is pending with the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and is yet to be sent to the president for a decision. As the prime minister is on a visit abroad, no such appointment may be possible till his return home later this week.

As the court is not working, its judges either come to their chambers and go home without working or do not attend their offices. The FSC has about 1,400 cases pending with its Lahore registry alone. They include writ petitions in its original jurisdiction which seek interpretation of various injunctions of Islam and clarification of its own judgments and the Hudood laws. Bail applications and miscellaneous petitions in cases under adjudication are also part of the backlog.

One of the pending cases is about Riba (interest) which was remanded to the FSC by the Supreme Court in 2004 with the observation that certain lacunae of the judgment needed to be removed. The FSC had declared Riba un-Islamic and stopped banks to charge a mark-up which was another form of interest. The banks moved the apex court in a review petition which was accepted. The case has not been taken up by the FSC since then.