ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: The Supreme Judicial Council has become a “club” of the superior judiciary as it is being used to shield the wrongdoings of the members of the judiciary, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association claimed.

Talking to Dawn, SCBA president Hamid Khan said that the SJC, a forum set up under the Constitution for the accountability of the high court and Supreme Court judges, had lost its utility and become a “club”.

Instead of the accountability of the judges the SJC protects those who should be taken to task, he said.

Calling the SJC a dead organization, the SCBA president said it needed to be abolished. He, however, stated that the bar would not ask the military rulers to abolish the SJC and would press this demand when parliament would be in existence.

Mr Khan said that the SJC needed to be replaced with a ‘Judicial Commission consisting of members from judiciary, parliament, the bar, and public’.

He said the SJC, a brain-child of the late Justice Manzoor Qadir, had failed to deliver.

Asked to comment on the recent amendments to Article 209 by the military government through the Legal Framework Order, the SCBA president said it would serve no purpose as the institution had been totally “perverted”.

Under the changes made in the Article 209 of the Constitution, the SJC had been given suo motu powers to inquire into any matters relating to the corruption or incapacity of a judge in performing his functions properly. Now the SJC recommendations would be a binding for action by president.

The SJC has been part of every Constitution since 1962, but only four cases have been referred to it.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly turned down the requests for interpretation of Article 209, which says that the president, on information received from the SJC or from any other source, shall direct the SJC to inquire into the matter.

The Supreme Court held that the president “alone” on the advice of the prime minister or the cabinet could refer a case of a judge to the SJC for holding an inquiry against him.

The SCBA chief said that changes in the existing mechanism for the accountability of judiciary would be of no use.