THE country’s opposition parties and lawyers’ bodies on Thursday demanded new accountability law as well as a revised mechanism for the appointment of higher judiciary judges, observing that the present justice system was being misused for political engineering. In a joint statement issued after an all parties conference organized by the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), they demanded parliamentary oversight of the process of appointment of judges.
There are demands both from the opposition and the treasury benches to reform the accountability law especially in the backdrop of observations and rulings of the apex court. However, the two sides have failed to evolve consensus and instead engaged in blame game for the sake of petty political considerations. The accountability process is definitely flawed but given inability of the politicians to sort out their differences; a viable option could be to assign the task to professionals including jurists of repute to draft a comprehensive new law that fulfils demands of justice and fairplay. Accountability is need of the hour because of all-pervasive corruption but the prevalent law and procedures have lost credibility because of widely-held perception of the law being used to settle political scores. The lawyers, who are one of the stakeholders in the judicial system, might have genuine grievances against the existing system of appointment of judges to the higher courts but the issue should be resolved through dialogue among judiciary, legal community and Parliament. While doing so, we can also benefit from international best practices so that the cherished objective of independence of the judiciary is realized.
