The Process of Judicial Appointments in Pakistan under the 1973 Constitution

Abstract

The process of the appointment of judges of the superior judiciary has been the subject of great interest in Pakistan. In the Al-Jihad trust case (1996), the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the constitutional provisions resulted in the power of appointment fall into the hands of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. This did not go well with the legislature and the executive, since they were left with no meaningful role in such appointments. The political setup established after the general elections gave a new facet to the process of appointment by adding Article 175A in the Constitution with the objective of balancing the role of the executive and the judiciary in such appointments.
The purpose of this paper is to analyse and critically evaluate constitutional provisions relating to the process of judicial appointments before the Eighteenth Amendment, and the reasons for altering the process under Eighteenth Amendment in the light of the Supreme Court judgments.