ISLAMABAD: Justice Qazi Faez Isa has expressed reservations over the formation of a larger bench to hear the presidential reference seeking interpretation of Article 63-A of the Constitution.
Article 63-A, the law on floor-crossing, provides that MPs who defect could lose their seats if they then vote against their party, but the government, which on Monday moved the Supreme Court asking it to interpret the law, aims to find out whether that also applies before they cast their votes.
On Wednesday, Justice Isa wrote a letter to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, expressing his reservations and raising questions over the formation of the larger bench.
He said the entire nation’s eyes were set on the reference, but no consultation was held with the senior judges of the apex court before the formation of the bench.
Moreover, the senior-most judges have been ignored and not been made part of the bench, the letter read.
It further claimed that rules were not followed, and judges who were on the 4th, 8th and 13th number in the seniority list were included on the bench.
In matters involving legal and constitutional affairs, senior judges should be included in the bench, the letter said.
Justice Isa sent the copy of the letter to the attorney general, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president, judges of the apex court and advocate generals of all provinces.
In the letter, he also objected to the appointment of a civil servant as registrar of the court. In my view, the registrar’s appointment is illegal, he wrote.
He said he thought twice before writing this letter.
He said the Supreme Court had clubbed the SCBA petition together with the presidential reference. But they could not be clubbed together and the apex court should hear them separately.
The SCBA application has been filed under Article 184-3 while the presidential reference is consultative, the letter added.
