The Supreme Court of Pakistan has forwarded the names of three senior judges to the special parliamentary committee tasked with selecting the next Chief Justice. On behalf of Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, the SC registrar submitted the names of Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, and Justice Yahya Afridi.
The 12-member parliamentary committee, established under the 26th Constitutional Amendment for the appointment of the Chief Justice, is scheduled to meet today. This committee comprises members from both the National Assembly and the Senate, including 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 constituted the committee to appoint the next Chief Justice for a three-year term. The committee includes representatives from various political parties: Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Shaista Pervaiz Malik, and Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N); Raja Pervez Ashraf, Syed Naveed Qamar, and Senator Farooq H. Naik from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP); Senator Kamran Murtaza representing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F); and Rana Ansar, a woman lawmaker from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P). Gohar Ali Khan, Sahibzada Muhammad Hamid Raza, and Senator Syed Ali Zafar represent the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The special parliamentary committee will select the Chief Justice from the three senior-most judges submitted by the Supreme Court. According to the procedure outlined in the 26th Constitutional Amendment, the Chief Justice sends the names of the three senior judges to the National Assembly Speaker, who then refers them to the parliamentary committee for selection.
However, reports indicate that PTI will not participate in today’s parliamentary committee meeting.
