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ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court sought on Wednesday assistance of two senior counsel in determining the fate of petitions challenging the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order 2009 as well as the right of the people of the area to be governed through their chosen representatives.
A two-judge bench headed by Justice Saqib Nisar appointed Advocate Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and Khawaja Haris Ahmed as amici curiae (friends of court) and asked the federal government to come up with its replies to the contentions raised in the petitions.
The court also indicated that it might constitute a larger bench to hear the petitions in view of the importance of the matter.
The petitions have been filed by general secretary of the Supreme Appellate Court Bar Association of Gilgit Mohammad Iqbal through his counsel Rai Mohammad Nawaz Kharral, the vice-chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan Bar Council and others.
Nawaz Kharral requested the apex court to declare the SRO No 786 (1) of Sept 9, 2009, Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order 2009, which was amended in February last year empowering the Kashmir affairs minister to act as governor of Gilgit-Baltistan, as illegal, unlawful and contrary to the May 1999 Supreme Court judgement in the Al Jihad Trust case.
Recalling the 1999 verdict which had held the two million people of the Northern Areas as citizens of Pakistan, the counsel said the judgement had ordered the federal government to take proper administrative and legislative measures to ensure that the people of Northern Areas enjoyed their rights as guaranteed in the 1973 Constitution.
Regarding the right to access to justice through an independent judiciary, the apex court judgement had also asked the federal government to equate the Chief Court of Northern Areas with that of the high court and enlarge the jurisdiction exercised by the courts in Gilgit-Baltistan in such a way as to include the powers of entertaining constitutional petitions for the enforcement of fundamental rights of the people, in addition to providing them the right to approach a higher forum for leave to appeal against the orders of the chief court.
In 1999, the counsel said, the apex court had also given a time frame requiring the government to initiate appropriate administrative and legislative measures within six months by making necessary amendments to the Constitution, relevant statutes, orders, rules and notifications.
Such amendments should aim at ensuring that the citizens of the region have the right to be governed through their chosen representatives and have access to justice through independent judiciary.
But, the counsel regretted, the federal government had failed to comply with the 1999 judgement, even though over a decade had passed since the SRO 786 (1) of 2009 was issued during the last PPP government. The SRO was later amended to suite the desire and whims of the federal government to appoint the Kashmir affairs minister as governor of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The impugned SRO as amended till 2015 was a clear contempt and disregard of the 1999 judgement and thus all the executive functionaries of the federal government had committed contempt of the court, the petition argued, requesting the court to take notice of the contemptuous conduct of the government.
The petitioner also requested the court to order the government to immediately commence necessary constitutional and legislative amendments to the Constitution to protect the rights of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan so that they could be governed through their chosen representatives and had access to the independent judiciary.
Published in Dawn October 20th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/news/1291110/sc-seeks-two-lawyers-assistance-in-gb-governance-law-case
@WAJsal and our other northern friends.
A two-judge bench headed by Justice Saqib Nisar appointed Advocate Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and Khawaja Haris Ahmed as amici curiae (friends of court) and asked the federal government to come up with its replies to the contentions raised in the petitions.
The court also indicated that it might constitute a larger bench to hear the petitions in view of the importance of the matter.
The petitions have been filed by general secretary of the Supreme Appellate Court Bar Association of Gilgit Mohammad Iqbal through his counsel Rai Mohammad Nawaz Kharral, the vice-chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan Bar Council and others.
Nawaz Kharral requested the apex court to declare the SRO No 786 (1) of Sept 9, 2009, Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order 2009, which was amended in February last year empowering the Kashmir affairs minister to act as governor of Gilgit-Baltistan, as illegal, unlawful and contrary to the May 1999 Supreme Court judgement in the Al Jihad Trust case.
Recalling the 1999 verdict which had held the two million people of the Northern Areas as citizens of Pakistan, the counsel said the judgement had ordered the federal government to take proper administrative and legislative measures to ensure that the people of Northern Areas enjoyed their rights as guaranteed in the 1973 Constitution.
Regarding the right to access to justice through an independent judiciary, the apex court judgement had also asked the federal government to equate the Chief Court of Northern Areas with that of the high court and enlarge the jurisdiction exercised by the courts in Gilgit-Baltistan in such a way as to include the powers of entertaining constitutional petitions for the enforcement of fundamental rights of the people, in addition to providing them the right to approach a higher forum for leave to appeal against the orders of the chief court.
In 1999, the counsel said, the apex court had also given a time frame requiring the government to initiate appropriate administrative and legislative measures within six months by making necessary amendments to the Constitution, relevant statutes, orders, rules and notifications.
Such amendments should aim at ensuring that the citizens of the region have the right to be governed through their chosen representatives and have access to justice through independent judiciary.
But, the counsel regretted, the federal government had failed to comply with the 1999 judgement, even though over a decade had passed since the SRO 786 (1) of 2009 was issued during the last PPP government. The SRO was later amended to suite the desire and whims of the federal government to appoint the Kashmir affairs minister as governor of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The impugned SRO as amended till 2015 was a clear contempt and disregard of the 1999 judgement and thus all the executive functionaries of the federal government had committed contempt of the court, the petition argued, requesting the court to take notice of the contemptuous conduct of the government.
The petitioner also requested the court to order the government to immediately commence necessary constitutional and legislative amendments to the Constitution to protect the rights of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan so that they could be governed through their chosen representatives and had access to the independent judiciary.
Published in Dawn October 20th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/news/1291110/sc-seeks-two-lawyers-assistance-in-gb-governance-law-case
@WAJsal and our other northern friends.
