Special parliamentary committee meeting under way to pick next CJP

ISLAMABAD: The special parliamentary committee meeting, which was earlier postponed after members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) did not show up, resumed to finalize the nomination of the next chief justice after the enactment of the 26th Constitutional Amendment.

Earlier, the SIC, a parliamentary alliance of the PTI, officially announced its boycott of the special parliamentary committee after a meeting with a sub-committee of the special parliamentary committee — comprising Ahsan Iqbal, Rana Ansar, Pervaiz Ashraf, and Kamran Murtaza. SIC member Barrister Gohar Ali Khan informed the sub-committee that SIC members would not attend the special parliamentary committee meetings.  

The special parliamentary committee meeting, initially scheduled for 4pm, was delayed till 8pm to pursued the SIC members to attend the session.

The special parliamentary committee meeting commenced with participation from members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). No representative of the SIC showed up to attend the meeting.

According to sources, the law secretary has already presented the names and profiles of the three most senior judges — Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar and Justice Yahya Afridi — to pick one of them as the next chief justice.