Islamabad:
A crucial meeting of the Legal Commission for Pakistan (JCP), chairman of Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, will be held on June 19 in the Supreme Court. The meeting will discuss the extension of constitutional benches.
The case was last dealt with in the Commission Session on December 21, 2024, when a majority approved a six-month extension of the nominated judges in the Supreme Court’s constitutional benches.
At present, 15 judges have worked for the constitutional benches. Among them, a committee led by Justice Aminuddin Khan chooses and consists of justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazahar judge for the special constitutional benches.
Expansion of constitutional benches has been proposed for the second time. On December 21, the federal government managed to get its way to JCP, who had rejected a proposal to nominate all Supreme Court judges to its constitutional bench (CB) with a majority of 7 to 6.
Apart from Justice Aminuddin, all JCP’s jurisdictions, namely CJP Yahya Afridi, justice had SYED MANSOOR Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail voted for all the Supreme Court Judge to be part of CB. Two PTI members Barrister Gahar Ali Khan and lawyer Ali Zafar supported their vision.
However, the government as well as Pakistan carried Council (PBC) representatives in JCP did not support their proposals. The judicial members had been embarrassed when their own co -judge, Justice Aminuddin Khan, did not support their proposals.
JCP with majority 7 to 6 approved the expansion of CB led by Justice Aminuddin Khan for six months.
Once again, the government is expected to be successful in getting a majority votes for the expansion of the current CB, which performance is under doubt. There are no objective criteria for the selection of judges for CB.
The benefit of cb
The current CB led by Justice Aminuddin Khan has only been able to give three reported judgment since it has been created through 26. Constitutional amendment.
CB had handed down the first reported verdict in January. This two-page decision was related to CB’s jurisdiction itself. The order had stated that regular benches could not hear questions related to the interpretation of law and constitution.
Secondly, a short order has been adopted in the military court case. Likewise, another reported judgment was author of Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail.
Attorneys wonder as who will judge the performance of the constitutional bench. They also raise the question that why Justice Mandokhail does not get independent CB.
A lawyer says CB started spending two months avoiding the 26th change case in favor of hearing cases of no significance that had already become indispensable.
“It followed it by spending four months almost exclusively on the military court case before they set aside a judgment that must certainly have pleased the establishment. The only other note of the note it adopted during this period was to ensure that no regular bench of the Supreme Court could hear any case of significance.
“Next, it took up with the reserved seats review case, where most of the original judges were excluded, and the few that were included seemed to have suddenly and inexplicably become of the opposite view from day one,” the lawyer says.
He said that when the idea of a CB chosen by politicians was first floated; Many said that such a bench was fundamentally against the idea of judicial independence and predicted that it would reduce SC’s credibility to nothing. Nevertheless, judges in Pakistan have sometimes defied predictions. “Unfortunately, CB’s performance has so far proven that this is not one of these times.”
He also said that the stated justification for CB at the time of the 26th amendment was to improve SC’s constitutional case law. For the first six months, the number of detailed assessments it has issued can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And all of them have tended to take case law backwards and closer to the wishes of the establishment, ”he adds.
