The Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) has formed a five-member committee to determine criteria for appointment of judges to constitutional benches of the Supreme Court and all four high courts, as well as criteria for selection of judges.
Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel will be the chairman of the committee. Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan and Senator Farooq Hamid Naik will represent the government, while Senator Syed Ali Zafar will represent the opposition.
Muhammad Ahsan Bhawan, who was appointed as a member of the JCP last week, and Niaz Muhammad Khan, interim secretary of the JCP, will be the other members of the committee.
During the last meeting of the Commission on February 28, the Judicial Commission had decided to constitute a committee to draft objective criteria for appointment of judges under Article 175A(4) of the Constitution and selection of judges for Constitutional Benches under Articles 191A and 202A.
The committee will propose a set of legal instruments to fix the criteria as a valid legal document.
The decision to constitute the committee was taken after Justice Aminuddin Khan proposed to include five more judges in the bench during the previous meeting.
However, PTI representatives had argued that the head of the constitutional bench should not have the authority to decide which judge should be made part of the bench. Instead, they proposed that all the judges of the Supreme Court be included in the constitutional bench.
Two senior members of the Commission, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Muneeb Akhtar, had also opposed the inclusion of more judges in the constitutional bench. PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan and Senator Syed Ali Zafar had insisted that the procedure should be decided before adding more judges to the constitutional bench.
During the last meeting, the Judicial Commission had increased the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court to 13 members by adding five judges.
In a meeting chaired by Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi, a majority decision was taken to nominate Justice Hashim Khan Kakar, Justice Salahuddin Panhore, Justice Shakeel Ahmed, Justice Aamir Farooq and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim as judges of the constitutional bench.
The constitutional bench initially included Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha A Malik, Justice Hassan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Musarrat Hilali, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan.
