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 chooses a selection led by Justice Aminuddin Khan and consists of justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Ali Mazahar judges for the special constitutional benches.
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.
