The government on Wednesday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its December 21, 2012 order which asked President Asif Ali Zardari to issue appointment notifications of two Islamabad High Court judges with effect from the date of expiry of their earlier notifications.
Attorney General Irfan Qadir filed the petition on behalf of the government maintaining that the president is empowered to make such appointments.
The petition stated that unless the president himself makes an appointment or issues an appointment order, no concerned authority is empowered to issue the notification of appointment in terms of Article 175-A of the Constitution and hence the order under review suffers from grave error of law.
The petition further said that the Constitution does not assign the judges of the superior courts with the role of appointment or removal of their brother judges and a judge cannot sit over the legality, propriety or impropriety of appointment or removal of fellow judges, adding “as a matter of practice and propriety a reference filed by the president ought to have been decided on priority basis so that the head of state had before him the opinion of court prior to taking a final decision in the matter”.
