It is bound to happen. Someone, somewhere will lodge a writ petition against the 19th amendment. The sacrosanct principle of the independence of the judiciary has been violated, the petitioner will say, and the parliament did not tweak the 18th amendment to the effect despite the court having expressed reservations against certain troublesome clauses. What is the court to do with this petition sympathetic to it? Not much, apparently. The space for a decision against the amendment has been curtailed vastly, with the even more sacrosanct principle of parliamentary supremacy coming in the way. After all, all but one present member of the lower house voted against the amendment. From here on, it will sail to the Senate, where its passage is going to be a cakewalk.
Why would the judiciary and their zealous activist-petitioners be upset about the amendment? Specially when under the 19th, the Judicial Commission is now completely dominated by members of the judiciary? Because when the said judicial commission sends a nomination to the parliamentary committee, the latters rejection of said candidate is not justiciable. The politicians, in other words, have a veto.
The ruling party seems to have dotted its Is and crossed its Ts when it came to bringing all other parties on board. A multi-party parliamentary committee deliberated for some time on the matter and seems to have thrashed out all of the issues, making it really difficult for media naysayers to say anything at all. The speed with which it was rushed through the house is a favourite of many pundits to take on but it did not hold water when opposition members werent complaining themselves. The passage of the 19th amendment is rather heartening. Not because for the first time, the system to appoint judges now includes public representatives but because the political parties have, in the case of the 18th and 19th amendments, shown maturity and a sense of institutional activism.
