Attorney General Irfan Qadir on Friday said judges could not be appointed without the consent of the president. Talking to reporters, Qadir said no institution had the authority to issue an order of the appointment of judges. “Notification is not worthy without the consent of president,” he said. He said the president had to consider the constitution rather than obeying the orders of the apex court of the country.
Earlier, the Supreme Court ordered the government to issue the notification of Justice Shaukat Siddiqui and Justice Noorul Haq’s appointment in the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
A five-member SC bench, headed by Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and comprising Justice Tariq Parvez, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, announced the short judgement on a constitutional petition filed by Nadim Ahmed Advocate against the non-issuance of notification of judges’ appointment in the IHC. Two judges, Justice Siddiqui and Justice Qureshi, had earlier been nominated by the Judicial Commission (JC) and approved by the Parliamentary Committee (PC) under Article 175A inserted into the constitution following the 18th and 19th Amendments. Their terms expired on November 20 after the Presidency returned the recommendations to the JC with an observation to reconsider the nominations because the commission which had finalised the names had not been constituted properly.
Judges cannot be appointed without president’s consent: AG
