ISLAMABAD, Aug 10 A judicial crisis in future will not result from a clash between the government and the Supreme Court but from a virtual emptying of the Balochistan High Court.

“In a few weeks' time there will be no high court in the province,” Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja observed on Tuesday, during the hearing of petitions against different aspects of the 18th Amendment.

The crisis is linked to the fact that the chief justice as well as the four other judges of the high court are serving on an ad hoc basis till Sept 5 and their appointments cannot be regularised till the Supreme Court's decision on a new method of appointment of judges under the 18th Amendment.

“There are so many difficulties we are facing which I cannot share in the open court,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said.

He asked Additional Attorney-General K.K. Agha to seek instructions from the federal government and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on how to deal with the difficulty and inform the court on Wednesday.

BHC Chief Justice Qazi Faez Issa, Justice Jamal Mandokhel, Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mengal, Justice Tahira Safdar Baqri and Justice Noor Mohammad Muskanzai were appointed for a year.

If the court approves the method of the appointment of superior court judges envisaged under Article 175-A of the Constitution, the judicial commission (JC) for the appointment of high court judges will comprise the chief justice and two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, a former judge of the Supreme Court to be nominated by the chief justice, the federal law minister, the attorney-general, a senior advocate nominated by the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) for two years, the chief justice of the high court concerned, the senior-most judge of the high court, the provincial law minister and a senior advocate to be nominated by the provincial bar council for two years.

The absence of a senior judge in the high court is bound to pose difficulties in constituting the commission.

“We can't probably play around the constitutional provisions,” Justice Khawaja said.

He said Balochistan was the most sensitive province which would be without any high court if Article 175-A was accepted and whatever happened there afterwards would be unconstitutional.

The Raza Rabbani committee that prepared the amendment held 77 meetings but did not envisage such a situation, the judge said, wondering that perhaps the amendment impinged upon the independence of the judiciary.

The additional advocate-general dwelt at length on why the need to change the old system of appointment of judges was felt and said the petitioners who had challenged the amendment themselves had provided the answer.

A majority of the petitioners have favoured the setting up of the judicial commission and said the previous system lacked transparency, though they disagree with the inclusion in it of the law minister and the attorney-general. “By and large, the petitioners were in agreement with the concept of the JC,” Mr Agha said.

Citing excerpts from a 'white paper' issued by the PBC in 2003, he said it painted a bleak picture of the judiciary.