Parliamentary committee meets to appoint new Chief Justice of Pakistan

Islamabad: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has sent the sent names of three most senior judges to the special parliamentary committee for the selection of next chief justice.

On the behalf of Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, SC registrar sent the names of Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar and Justice Yahya Afridi to the parliamentary committee.

The 12-member parliamentary committee set up under the 26th constitutional amendment for the appointment of chief justice is scheduled to meet today. This special committee comprises MNAs Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Shaista Pervaiz Malik, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Syed Naveed Qamar, Rana Ansar, Gohar Ali Khan, Sahibzada Muhammad Hamid Raza, and Senators Farooq Hameed Naik, Azam Nazeer Tarar, Syed Ali Zafar and Kamran Murtaza.

Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Monday constituted a 12-member parliamentary committee to appoint the next Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) for a three-year term. The committee, established following the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, includes representatives from both the National Assembly and the Senate.

Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Shaista Pervaiz Malik and Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar belong to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) while Raja Pervez Ashraf, Syed Naveed Qamar and Senator Farooq H. Naik are from Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). 

Senator Kamran Murtaza will represent Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) while Raana Ansar is a woman lawmaker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).

Gohar Ali Khan, Sahibzada Muhammad Hamid Raza and Senator Syed Ali Zafar are representatives of Sunni Itehad Council (SIC) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The 12-member special parliamentary committee will select the chief justice from three senior-most judges.

According to the procedure under the 26th constitutional amendment, the chief justice will send the names of three senior-most judges of the Supreme Court to the National Assembly speaker. The speaker will refer the names to the parliamentary committee which will “pick” the chief justice.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the PTI will not be part of Tuesday's parliamentary commitee meeting.