Senate body passes bill to end appointment of ad hoc SC judges

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Tuesday unanimously approved the Constitutional Amendment Bill 2016, seeking elimination of Article 182 from the Constitution which has a provision for appointing ad hoc judges to the Supreme Court.

The committee meeting was held at the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Muhammad Javed Abbasi, which considered Constitutional (Amendment) Bill 2016, introduced by Zaheeruddin Babar Awan.

However, Farhatullah Babar withdrew his Contempt of Court (Amendment) Bill, which the committee accepted.Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan said the appointment of ad hoc judges to the SC deprived the high court chief justices and senior judges of the right to elevation to the apex court.

The ad hoc judges were appointed at that time when the quorum of the court was not complete, he added.Aitzaz said Article 182 should be deleted from the Constitution forever.

The committee also considered the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) (Amendment) Bill 2016, introduced by Zaheeruddin Babar Awan and summoned the women representatives of the Supreme Court Bar, Pakistan Bar Council and provincial bars for their opinion. Babar Awan said the purpose of the bill was to give representation to women in the higher judiciary as not a single woman had ever been elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court in Pakistan’s history.

He said according to the proposed amendment, there would be at least 1-3 female judges in the Supreme Court.

The law body also reviewed the proposed amendments to the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) Act 1996 and sought details from the Authority’s director general about international standards and cases caught by them during the past years in the next meeting.