The federal government Saturday moved the apex court against petitions challenging the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, aimed at regulating the chief justice’s powers.
Additional Attorney General for Pakistan Amir Rehman submitted the federal government’s eight-page response to the SC three-member bench hearing the petitions against the controversial legislation.
The government, in its response, maintained that the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023 had become an act of parliament after it was passed in a joint sitting last month. The instant Petitions are clearly an attempt to prevent the advancement of justice, independence of judiciary and availing of remedy to persons aggrieved of any judgment and/or order of this Hon’ble Court passed under Article 184(3), it added.
The government said the petitioners have approached the apex court “with unclean hands, lack bonafide and as such, are not entitled to any indulgence by this Hon’ble Court as the same would unnecessarily prejudice public trust in the independence and impartiality of this Hon’ble Court”.
Under the new legislation, the government said the power to constitute benches, which is “thereto vested in the chief justice under the Supreme Court Rules, 1980 (the SC Rules), is to be exercised by a committee comprising of the chief justice and the two next senior-most judges of this Court”. “The SC Rules itself, and rightly so given the mandate of Article 191 of the Constitution, subjects the powers of the Hon’ble Chief Justice to constitute benches to the law.”
Therefore, the government said there is no bar that prevents the parliament from legislating on the matters contained in the act.
