ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court would hear the petitions filed against the bill reducing the powers of the chief justice of Pakistan on May 2.

An eight-member bench of the SC – CJP Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Sayyad Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha Malik, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Shahid Waheed -would take the petitions.

Advocate Muhammad Shafay Munir, Raja Amer Khan and Chaudhry Ghulam Hussain filed the petitions under the article 184(3). The petitions argued that the Supreme Court was an independent body and all judges, including the CJP, should exercise their powers without any interference from the other institution.

According to the petitions, the Supreme Court and its corpus as defined in Article 176 consist of CJP and so many other judges as may be determined by the parliament or, until so determined, as may be fixed by the president. It is clear that the CJP is the centrifugal force and the entire fabric of the apex court is webbed around it. The independence of the judiciary and of each of the judges and its CJP is declared as an aim enunciated in the preamble to the Constitution; the same is a part of the objective resolution and thus a substantive part of the constitution, the petitions emphasized.

The SC, led by CJP with its judges, must be independent of all executive or legislative transgress so as to perform their constitutional obligations in providing justice to the people of Pakistan. The same cannot be allowed to be compromised with regards to the function of the judicial organ of the state, the judges or CJP or their independence as provided in the constitution, it was added in the petition.

The bill, titled the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill 2023, is aimed at depriving the office of the CJP of powers to take suo motu notice in an individual capacity. It was initially passed by both houses of parliament and sent to the president for his assent. However, the president had sent it back, saying that the proposed law travelled “beyond the competence of parliament”. The bill was subsequently adopted by a joint session of parliament – albeit with some amendments.