In a letter to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, Supreme Court’s senior puisne judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa says the meeting called for July 28 is illegal and unconstitutional.
By Ahmer Kureishi
ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial’s move to call a meeting of Judicial Commission of Pakistan at a time when the senior puisne judge is on a vacation and the attorney general is recuperating after surgery is illegal and unconstitutional.
This is the view held in a 5-page letter written by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, the senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP), which also includes several other serious allegations of wrongdoing.
Qazi Faez Isa is the most senior judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) after Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial. He will rise to the post of CJP after Bandial’s retirement.
Currently, Justice Isa is on a notified and gazetted holiday abroad, to the members of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP).
The JCP is a constitutionally mandated body to make recommendations for the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, High Court, and Federal Shariat Court in Pakistan.
Mandated by Article 175A, introduced through the Eighteenth Amendment and reworked through the Nineteenth Amendment, the JCP has the Chief Justice of Pakistan as its ex-officio chairman.
Other members include four most senior Judges of the SCP; a former chief justice or a former judge of the SCP, to be nominated by the CJP in consultation with the four member judges for a term of two years; Federal Minister for Law and Justice; Attorney-General for Pakistan; and a Senior Advocate of the SCP nominated by the Pakistan Bar Council for a term of two years.
In his letter, Justice Isa points out that in the JCP meeting held on June 28, 2022 everyone “except the CJ and the Hon’ble Justice ljaz-ul-Ahsan” voted to postpone the meeting as there was no justification to call it during the gazetted summer vacations and as the senior most judge was on sanctioned annual leave.
Justice Isa says, “It was also noted that for the first time ever, the senior puisne judge had been excluded from chairing either the antecedents or the competence gauging committees of the JCP.
“Therefore, calling yet another JCP meeting when all the same reasons, on the basis of which earlier meetings were postponed, still subsist and there is the added reason of the Attorney-General having recently been operated upon, is inexplicable.”
The senior puisne judge maintains that the CJP cannot disregard the decisions of the JCP. “In calling another meeting during notified-gazetted vacations when some members are on annual leave, and at a time when the Attorney-General is recovering from the second surgery he has recently undergone, is unjustified.
“The democratically taken action by JCP not to meet in such circumstances must be abided by. Democracy is the bedrock of the Constitution and the basis on which Pakistan came into existence.”
The former Chief Justice of Balochistan high Court is askance why cannot the CJP wait when he knows that the senior puisne judge is due to return to Pakistan on August 13, 2022.
“Not to have JCP meetings for months and then to schedule three such meetings when the senior puisne judge is on sanctioned annual leave suggests that the CJ does not want him to be physically participate, which is illegal and unconstitutional”, says the Judge.
“The CJ did not schedule meetings when the vacancies in the SC occurred but all of a sudden wants to make wholescale appointments to the SC hurriedly”, he continues.
“To appoint five judges means more than a third of the SC, which the CJ wants to pack during notified-gazetted vacations, and by avoiding the participation of all members.”
The complete text of the letter may be read below.
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