November 2, 2024
By Rehan Piracha
LAHORE
The Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice has approved a bill raising the strength of the Supreme Court judges, including the chief justice, from 17 to 25.
The committee considered the Supreme Court, Number of Judges, (Amendment) Bill, 2024, in its meeting, chaired by Senator Farooq Naek, at the Parliament House in Islamabad on November 1.
Senator Abdul Qadir, who presented the private member’s bill, insisted on enhancing the number of judges in the Supreme Court to address the huge backlog of pending cases. In his view, the Supreme Court has four diverse and demanding jurisdictions—original, appellate, advisory, and review—that were contributing to the continuous accumulation of cases. The backlog, combined with the complexities of integrating the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, necessitates more judicial resources, he emphasised, adding that the number of Supreme Court judges remains the same as it was in the 1990s.
However, Jamiat Ulema Islam’s (JUI) Senator Kamran Murtaza and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s (PTI) Senator Hamid Khan opposed the proposal to increase the number of apex court judges. Both senators agreed that the judiciary should be consulted before increasing the strength of judges in the Supreme Court. Hamid Khan said the 26th constitutional amendment weakened the judiciary, suggesting that increasing the number of judges could be perceived as an attempt by the government to influence the judiciary. Senator Murtaza of JUI expressed similar concerns, saying the government might use the increased majority in the judiciary to sway decisions.
Despite the objections from the JUI and PTI members, the committee went on to pass the bill. The approved proposal stipulates a total of 25 Supreme Court judges, including one Chief Justice.
Speaking with Voicepk, Senator Murtaza said that a major reason for the backlog of cases was the vacancies in the provincial high courts that have not been filled promptly. “The first step should be making appointments for vacant positions in the high courts to reduce workload and pendency of cases before they reach the Supreme Court,” he added.
One-third of high court judges posts vacant
There are 58 vacancies of judges against the overall sanctioned strength of 154 judges in the provincial high courts of Lahore, Peshawar, Sindh, Balochistan, and Islamabad. The Lahore High Court (LHC) is working with 36 judges against the sanctioned strength of 60 judges. The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has 13 judges against the sanctioned posts of 30 judges. The Sindh High Court’s (SHC) present strength is 28 judges against the sanctioned strength of 40 judges. The Balochistan High Court (BHC) and and Islamabad High Court (IHC) are short of three judges and two judges against sanctioned posts of 14 and 10 judges, respectively.
On the other hand, Senator Shahadat Awan of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a member of the committee, defended the proposal to increase the number of Supreme Judges to 25, citing that the backlog of cases before the apex court stood close to 60,000 cases. “We sought a figure of the backlog from the law secretary due to the absence of the law minister in the committee’s meeting,” Awan told Voicepk. The Federal Secretary of Law, requested a time of three weeks to get the current figure of the backlog of cases in the Supreme Court.
“I also shared a figure of 59,994 cases quoted in a recent news story about the backlog in the apex court,” he added. He said Pakistan’s judicial situation could not be compared with countries that had fewer or more judges in the Supreme Court given their population size.
“The pendency of cases has steadily increased over the years,” he said.
The Chief Justice of the time, Justice Tassaduq Jilani had suggested increasing the strength of SC judges to 25 to tackle 32,000 pending cases in 2016, Awan said. “The backlog of cases has nearly doubled at present and in my opinion, the strength should have been raised to over 30 judges,” he added.
According to the fortnightly report on the disposal of cases issued by the Supreme Court registrar on November 2, the number of pending cases stood at 59,783 on October 31. The standing committee will now submit its report on the final recommendations on the bill to the upper house.