Saeed Minhas writes from Islamabad:
Federal law ministry has prepared a summary for the approval of the cabinet and the President to put a term on the office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, while several judges of the superior court have also been consulted on this, informed impeccable sources.
Presently the office of the Chief Justice does not have any term attached to it and the incumbent Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary would remain in office till the official retirement age, 65 years as per Pakistan labour laws. Chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary was sworn to his office on 30th June 2005 and as per his official age, he will be leaving his office in 2013. All the current 16 members of the superior court would be retired by then and the Chief Justice would be having an altogether new team by the time he leaves the office. The longest judge of the Supreme Court to continue with the incumbent Chief Justice would be Mr. Justice M. Javed Buttar who is due to retire in 2011 while all others would continue to leave the apex court for new appointees. Sources informed this scribe that Prime Minister Shoukat Aziz and Chief Minister Punjab Pervaiz Elahi in consultation with Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain is giving this proposal a close look these days besides using their good contacts with the judges of the superior court to allure them into this offering. The offering would mean that several of the 16 judges would have a chance to serve as chief justice before retirement and sources said that majority of the judges have agreed to such an offering. Considering the political backlash of such a move, these leaders are asking the judges to present this proposal to the government through their official forum so that government would be obliged to do ‘something’ about this. However, this is the only thing which judges of the superior courts learned to have disagreed because they too are fearing the public backlash and does not want to give their incumbent chief another chance to lead a lawyers movement. The author of this proposal are many, claimed the sources adding that law ministry is just putting it on record while constitutional and law experts have raised this point on the basis that if assemblies and president can have a term attached to their office why not the judiciary. Law minister, Ch. Wasi Zafar did not respond to several calls but officers in his ministry seeking anonymity confirmed that a draft was finalized but nothing more has been done yet. Political fall out of such a move are also considered by the top brass of the present government. Since presidential elections are likely to be held between September 15 and October 15 and President is already facing an uphill task of managing the two arch rivals; i.e Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif besides a possible challenge from the Supreme Court to his nomination as a presidential candidate, such a move could gravely harm the cause of Gen. Musharraf to seek re-election, commented a senior political analyst.