TWENTY-eight out of the sanctioned strength of 40 judges of the Sindh High Court have yet to be appointed, while in Lahore 25 slots out of 60 are vacant. Is the superior judiciary in a crisis? A closer scrutiny of the problems in Sindh and Punjab suggests a varied set of problems. In Sindh, qualified lawyers appear to be reluctant to give up lucrative private practices for the privilege of joining the bench, while an unspoken rule about balancing the Sindhi- and Urdu-speaking candidates for judgeship appears to be fuelling disagreement between the Sindh government and the SHC, whose chief justice initiates the appointment process for high court judges. In Punjab, disagreements about the ratio of district judges to practising lawyers to be appointed has delayed the nomination process somewhat; the last batch of judges appointed was overwhelmingly drawn from district judges and the nominations this time are overwhelmingly loaded in the lawyers’ favour. There is a further problem, one delicately broached in legal circles: when the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Chaudhry ousted the so-called ‘PCO’ judges, many happened to be appointed not by President Musharraf but by the Dogar court on the advice of the present federal government. By ousting so many judges at once and blacklisting them, the supply of judicial candidates has temporarily been reduced. A further problem: the 18th and 19th amendments have made the process of appointment judges a drawn-out one and perhaps turned off potential candidates facing a lengthy and public appointment process.

Can anything be done to quickly fill up the vacancies and to ensure the problems of the SHC and LHC at the moment are not repeated? One suggestion may be to lower the entry age, perhaps by five years down to 40, enabling more candidates who have yet to hit the truly lucrative stage of their careers to consider taking a bite at the judicial apple. Another is for the disputes at the nomination stage, between bar and bench, and bench and the governments, to be addressed more purposefully and quickly. Justice demands that the public’s needs be catered to as expeditiously as possible.