ISLAMABAD: Seven senior lawyers in a letter have requested Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi that their separate petitions challenging the 26th amendment be taken up urgently and heard by a full court bench of the Supreme Court.

“Needless to say, the very creation of a legislative instrument cannot examine the vires of the instrument, that creates it,” said a letter addressed to the CJP.

Some of the petitions were presented prior to the first meeting of the new Judicial Commission of Pakistan and formation of the “Constitutional Benches”. They included specific prayers for interim relief as well as urgency applications for listing of the matter.

Section 7 of the SC (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, explicitly requires… application pleading urgency or seeking interim relief to be fixed for hearing within 14 days from the date of its filing. “The delay is inexplicable,” the letter said.

Senior lawyers urge CJP their separate pleas be heard by full court bench of apex court

Signed by senior counsel Muneer A. Malik, Hamid A. Khan, Abid Shahid Zuberi, Salahuddin Ahmad, Khwaja Ahmad Hosain, Akhtar Mengal and Zainab Janjua, the letter requested the CJP to also order an inquiry into the unprecedented manner in which these petitions were dealt with by the court office and to ensure that all petitions were placed before the full court as already decided by the majority of the SC Practice and Procedure Committee as per its Oct 31 decision on some of the earlier petitions.

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The letter said that despite the passage of more than a month and the overwhelming constitutional and public importance of the matter, far from being fixed for hearing, and even more surprisingly, none of the petitions have even been assigned a number by the registry.

Nor have any office objections to the petitions been communicated by the SC registrar, the letter said.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2024