ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court in its detailed verdict on the petitions against the Parliamentary Committee’s decision of rejecting extension in the service of six additional judges of the high courts recommended by the Judicial Commission, on Monday held that the decisions of the Parliamentary Committee were subject to judicial review by the apex court.
The 86-page detailed judgment authored by Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui held that the petitions were maintainable under Article 184(3) since they did involve issues of public importance and enforcement of fundamental rights. It said under the principle laid down by the apex court for constitutional interpretation, Article 175 allowed the apex court to review the decisions of the Parliamentary Committee.
It said under the well-understood principles of judicial review, the decisions of the committee were based on an erroneous understanding of the law and the constitution, since these decisions were taken without lawful authority and had no legal effect.
It said the differences of opinion between the commission and the committee, in this context, cannot be seen as adversarial turf-wars between the two bodies or as matters of prestige, as both the bodies have the common aim of ensuring that the will of the people of Pakistan to establish an order wherein the independence of the judiciary is fully secured, which is an objective set out in the constitution itself, is accepted as a command of the people and is implemented, both in letter and in spirit with due humility and sincerity.
It noted that the Judicial Commission and the Parliamentary Committee are two limbs of one constitutional mechanism created by the newly added Article 175A and both of them owed their existence to Article 175A and not to the provisions relating to the legislature or the executive in the constitution.
It said any authority created under a constitutional provision was bound to act within its specified mandate as per Article 4 of the constitution, thus here was no immunity from judicial scrutiny reserved for the committee under the constitution and Article 69 had no application in the instant case and it was also not claimed by the federation.
The judgment said Article 175A (16) further cements the intention that the committee was not to have any connection or even semblance of relevance to the legislature or any form of parliamentary attribute. It was meant simply to be a committee working under the mandate of Article 175A, owing its existence to the said provision of the constitution. Thus, its members, even if they are parliamentarians, are neither required nor permitted to participate in the proceedings of the committee in their legislative capacity. Their background may have been imagined to make some fruitful contributions to the appointment process for judges, but their background was not to govern their mind while operating under the framework of Article 175A.
