Islamabad: A Committee of five members of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP), headed by Judge Jamal Khan Commandkhail, will meet again on September 26 to resume the unfinished agenda he left during his last session on August 22.
The agenda is related to the framing rules for the evaluation of the judicial performance of the judges of all the superior courts and suggests criteria for the elevation of the judges to the superior judiciary.
Although the rules have not yet been framed, the amendment of the Constitution 26 had modified article 175a of the Constitution, emphasizing that if the performance of a judge of the Superior Court was missing or inefficient, the JCP would grant the judge a certain period of improvement, as considered appropriate.
If, after the end of this period, the judge’s performance was still inefficient, the commission would send its report to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) with a recommendation for elimination.
The amendment also requires that the commission perform an annual performance evaluation of the judges of the Superior Court. In addition, it allows the commission to make separate rules to establish effective standards for such evaluations.
Similarly, the 26th amendment modified article 177, which now stipulates that no one can be elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court unless he is a citizen of Pakistan and has served as judge of a superior court for at least five years or has practiced as a lawyer for a superior court for not less than 15 years and is also a lawyer of the Supreme Court.
On June 19, the president of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi constituted a committee of broad evaluation of the Judicial Performance Committee of the Judges of the Superior Court. The body includes members of the Judiciary, the Parliament, the Executive and the Legal Fraternity. He was commissioned to prepare the draft rules for annual judicial performance evaluations and the development of criteria for the selection of judges in the higher courts.
At its last meeting, the Committee had deferred the agenda of the framing rules to regulate judicial performance evaluations, although it acknowledged that article 175a (4) of the Constitution allows to develop such rules. The matter will now deal with the near future again.
Posted in Dawn, on September 23, 2025
