Pak lawmakers defy to be SC judges
Lahore,
Nov
8:
Senator
Khalid
Ranjha,
Federal
Law
Minister
Zahid
Hamid
and
former
Attorney
General
Makhdoom
Ali
Khan
have
refused
to
become
Supreme
Court
(SC)
judges
after
the
government
asked
them
to
fill
the
vacant
posts
in
the
apex
court.
A high level meeting was held in Islamabad in which President Pervez Musharraf"s legal advisers suggested the vacant seats in the Supreme Court should be filled as soon as possible, the Geo News reported.
The legal advisers also advised Musharraf to get his eligibility case decided from the 11-member Supreme Court bench as it was before the proclamation of emergency to avoid future legal or constitutional hassles, the channel reported.
Earlier, a majority of the senior judges in Pakistan have rejected the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) issued by Musharraf, and refused to take oath under the new quasi-martial law emergency set-up.
The Sindh High Court judges rejected the new order overwhelmingly as only four out of 28 judges took oath under the new PCO.
In Punjab, 16 out of 31 judges refused to join the new set-up while only 13 judges took oath. The decision of the remaining two was not known.
In the Supreme Court in Islamabad, only four judges took oath, including Justice Hamid Dogar who was inducted at a special ceremony as the new Chief Justice.
Three others who joined him were Justice Abbasi, Justice Khokhar and Justice Buttar.
Though all the five judges of the Balochistan High Court, including its Chief Justice, took oath under the PCO, six judges of the NWFP High Court, including the Chief Justice, refused to do so.
Never before has there been such a huge forced exodus of judges from the superior courts, The News reported.
ANI
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