SC takes up PCO judges issue today

ISLAMABAD: New tensions between the executive and judiciary may surface on Friday when a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will review implementation of its May 18 verdict which had ordered the government to de-notify five superior court judges for taking oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO). The court had given the government till July 26 to implement the orders.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, comprises Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Justice Amir Hani Muslim. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq and the law secretary are likely to appear before the court.
The (PCO) judges are still part of the judiciary but are dysfunctional and required to be de-notified in accordance with the court orders. They are: Justices Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi, Hasnat Ahmed Khan, Syed Hamid Ali Shah and Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah of the Lahore High Court and Justice Ms Yasmeen Abbasey of the Sindh High Court.
The court set the July 26 deadline for the implementation of its judgment after Law Secretary Masood Chishty had been summoned by one of its judges last month and asked to suggest to the government in clear terms to take a final decision on the matter.
Consequently, the secretary sent a summary to the prime minister seeking de-notification of the PCO judges, but so far no decision has been taken.
Talking to this correspondent, a government official rejected a perception that there would be another confrontation between the executive and judiciary and said the judges would be de-notified the moment the prime minister approved the summary.
He said that since the government had not filed a review petition against the May 18 judgment, it was in the field and needed to be implemented. He said the government might seek some more time.
The Supreme Court ruled on May 18 that the dysfunctional judges had ceased to hold their offices after the passage of 18th and 19th Amendments. It said the PCO 2007 read with Oath of (Judges) Order 2007 had already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court through a July 31, 2009, order on a Sindh High Court Bar Association`s petition. “Thus no immunity is available to them,” it said. The court had also sent references back to the government forwarded to the Supreme Judicial Council under Article 209 of the Constitution which provided the only legal way to send judges home. The court observed that since these judges had been declared as not being judges, they could not be removed through the SJC and that they could be charged with committing contempt of the court — a defence the dysfunctional judges were banking on by pleading that a judge could not charge another judge with contempt.