Fed govt tables bill moderating CJP's powers in national assembly.

The federal government on Tuesday night tabled the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill 2023 in the National Assembly seeking amendments to moderate Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial's power to take suo motu notice.

Federal Law Minister Azam Nazri Tarar presented the bill. He said on the floor that we witnessed the times when suo motu notices had [even] been taken on the unavailability of parking facilities in the hospitals adding that suo motu notice was being criticized. 'Present laws empower the CJP to take suo motu notice adding that a person used the authority in the history in a way which harmed the judiciary's reputation', he added. The bar council, he said, proposed to review the procedure to constitute a bench in 2018.

He said we had faced gross injustices in the past adding that it must be allowed to file an intra-court appeal after the SC had issued a verdict. 'Some suo motu notices ridiculed the judiciary in history', he added. The dissenting notes of two SC judges, he said, raised concerns that 'one man power show' might not harm the institution's dignity.

The structure of the National Assembly suggests that the ruling coalition enjoys the support of 180 members while the opposition has only 37 members including PTI's 29. The PTI had resigned from the NA after former PM Imran Khan was ousted, however, the NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf did not accept resignations immediately. Later in 2023, when Mr Ashraf accepted the resignations, it brewed a political fiasco as the PTI...