The first-ever female judge of Islamabad High Court, Lubna Saleem Pervaiz Friday officially sworn in along with other two additional judges. Chief Justice of IHC Athar Minallah administered the oath to Additional Judges Lubna Saleem Pervaiz, Fiaz Anjum Jadran and Ghulam Azam Qambrani.

The Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA) boycotted the oath-taking ceremony in protest against suspension of the license of the Bar Secretary Umair Baloch by the IHC Chief Justice, a day ago. Justice Lubna Pervaiz was earlier working as deputy attorney general Sindh.

With these appointments now the total number of judges at the IHC has risen to seven. According to the Islamabad High Court Act 2010, the total strength of its judges is seven. Before these appointments, only four judges were working in the IHC where more than 18,000 cases are pending.

Besides the Chief Justice Athar, the other three judges are Justice Aamir Farooq, who is the senior puisne judge of the IHC, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb.

According to a notification issued by the Federal Ministry of Law and Justice, President Dr Arif Alvi had appointed these three additional judges for a period of one year. The three were earlier nominated by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) and later a parliamentary panel interviewed them and then approved their names.

Under Article 175-A of the Constitution, the initial appointment of an additional judge in the high court is made for one year. After this term expires, the JCP may consider them for a permanent position, and the Parliamentary Committee on Judges Appointment would then consider the Commission's recommendations.

It was November 21 when the JCP recommended Lubna Pervaiz, Jandran and Qambrani as additional judges and the nominations were unanimously confirmed by the parliamentary committee on December 4.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019