Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has approved the policy for nomination of legal advisers and placement of advocates on various panels for conducting cases of all government departments, public sector corporations, autonomous bodies as well as statutory organisations and arbitration. Giving outline of the new policy, Federal Law Minister Wasi Zafar on Thursday stated that now the approval for nomination of legal advisers' engagement of counsel and approval for placing counsels on panel will be given by the legal advisers committee.
This committee will comprise federal law minister as its chairman and Attorney General of Pakistan and law secretary as its members.
The minister said the existing list of legal advisers will be reviewed by the legal advisers committee and only those advocates, who are competent, would be retained while the services of rest of them would be dispensed with and their appointments de-notified.
"Only competent advocates would be considered for appointment as legal advisers," he said.
All cases to panel of advocates, the minister stated, would be assigned strictly on merit and in case of any complaint against them, their appointments would be de-notified. He elaborated the law division would maintain panels of advocates for contesting the government, autonomous bodies, statutory organisations, public sector organisations and arbitration's cases in various courts.
Without the consultation of the law ministry, no legal adviser or counsel on panel for consultation would contest cases in any court, tribunal or any forum, he added.
The minister said no government department, public sector corporation, autonomous bodies and statutory organisations would pay fee more than Rs100,000 as a cumulative fee for connected cases without prior approval of the law ministry and in other cases, no lawyer would be engaged without the consultation of this ministry.
He revealed that a meeting of the legal advisers committee was held to review and act upon the summary approved. A letter has also been issued by the law ministry to this effect to all the government departments, statutory organisations, public sector corporations and autonomous bodies, the minister further stated.