Four categories of superior court judges will be dealt with differently after the approval of a parliamentary resolution, with the harshest handling being reserved for the justices, who took oath under the Nov 3 Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). Top interlocutors of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have made four categories of all the incumbent judges of the Supreme Court, High Courts and the Federal Shariat Court. “A committee of the National Assembly will be constituted to deliberate upon the whole gamut of issues that will also seek input and assistance from the Senate and other stakeholders including bar associations,” prominent PPP leader Raza Rabbani told Saudi Gazette correspondent. A PML-N negotiator said that all the consequences of the parliamentary resolution would be taken into account to see which laws should be amended and whether any new law was required to be framed to take care of the issues in entirety. Listing the categories of judges, he said, one comprised those who, being already in service, took oath under the PCO; the second consisting of those who were inducted and administered oath when the PCO was in force; the third included those who were taken in the judiciary after the revival of the Constitution following the lifting of the state of emergency on Dec. 15, 2007 and the final being those who were ousted from the judiciary on the force of the PCO. Among them, a PPP negotiator said, those who were inducted as judges between Nov 3 and Dec 15 would not be allowed to continue. However, those, who were in service at the time of the enforcement of the PCO and those who took oath after the revival of the Constitution would not be removed, he said. He added that the judicial issue was not as simple as it looked to be “from outside”. He said a specific decision would be taken about the judgments that the superior courts delivered starting from Nov 3, which did not necessarily have political import. These may relate to rent, custody etc., which need not to be touched. “If issues relating to different categories of judges, court rulings handed down during this period etc., are left un-handled, there will be total legal anarchy and chaos,” the PPP legal mind, who would be playing a major role in tackling the legal issues, said. He said that the National Assembly committee would go into all the “grave complexities”. It would see and look into what to do with what has taken place, he said. The PPP leader said that it would not be a combined committee of the National Assembly and Senate because the past experience shows that joint parliamentary bodies have proved to be non-productive in the past. He said that the thirty days time, which has been fixed for the approval of the resolution by the National Assembly, was meant to allow the next government to discuss all these intricate issues threadbare before coming out with solid solutions. “In no way, this time period is meant to prolong the issue of the deposed judges and other matters relating to the judiciary,” the PPP leader added. __
