ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms, Senator Raza Rabbani, submitted on Sunday the draft of the 19th Amendment Bill, agreed upon by all parliamentary parties earlier in the day, to the National Assembly Secretariat, accepting all but two key recommendations of the Supreme Court about a mechanism for judges’ appointment.

Sources told Dawn that despite political differences making waves outside the parliament, members of the committee agreed that the report would be laid before the National Assembly on Tuesday and voting on it would be held on Wednesday. The sources said a session of Senate was also expected to be convened later this month for the passage of the 19th Amendment Bill from the upper house.

The PCCR, which had finalised the 18th Amendment unanimously passed by parliament in April, had to go into session again after the 17-judge Supreme Court in its Oct 21 verdict proposed to the parliament changes in the mechanism for appointment of superior court judges as introduced under Article 175-A of the 18th Amendment.

Throwing the constitutional ball back to the parliament’s court, the SC had nevertheless kept some initiatives for itself by postponing further hearings till the third week of January next year.

The SC ruling had provided guidelines for parliament to reconsider Article 175-A in a way to ensure that the appointment process was in consonance with the independence of judiciary, separation of powers and to make it workable.

The sources said that whereas the PCCR had included all suggestions of the SC in the draft, it had not agreed to a suggestion that the name of the candidate proposed by the Judicial Commission (JC) for judgeship would be final, if the JC approved it again after its one-time rejection by the Parliamentary Committee (PC).

Similarly, the PCCR has not agreed to the SC’s recommendation that “if the PC disagrees or rejects any recommendation of the JC, it will give specific reasons … and the same shall be justiciable by the SC.”

The PCCR has, however, agreed to the proposal of increasing the number of most senior judges of the SC in the JC from two to four.

The judgment also provided a guideline suggesting that in cases of vacancy a meeting of “the JC will be convened by the CJP as its chairman and the names of candidates for appointment to the SC will be initiated by him, of the Federal Shariat Court by its chief justice and of high courts by respective chief justices. The CJP as head of the JC will regulate its meetings and affairs as he may deem proper.”

The SC had recommended that proceedings of the PC would be held in camera, but a detailed record of its proceedings and deliberations would be maintained.

Meanwhile, Mr Rabbani told Dawn after a meeting of his committee: “We have not only accomplished our task within time, but I have just submitted the committee’s unanimously agreed report and the draft of the 19th Constitution Amendment Bill 2010 to the National Assembly Secretariat.”

He termed the approval of the draft with consensus a big achievement at a time when the country had been in the grip of political turmoil after the JUI-F decision to quit the ruling coalition and a 10-day ultimatum for a similar action by MQM, another coalition partner of the PPP-led government.

He said the report carried signatures of all members of political parties having representation in parliament, including Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Rehmatullah Kakar of JUI-F, Dr Farooq Sattar and Haider Abbas Rizvi of MQM, Ishaq Dar of PML-N and Wasim Sajjad of PML-Q.