ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — The chief justice of Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court has rebuked a Supreme Court bench led by Justice Munib Akhtar, saying its decision to reopen an already-settled case “raises serious concerns regarding judicial discipline, legal norms and institutional propriety”.
The remarks by FCC Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan came in an order dismissing dozens of review petitions against a December 2021 Supreme Court judgment that struck down the Income Support Levy Act 2013, Dawn reported. That judgment, written by then justice Qazi Faez Isa on a bench that included Justice Aminuddin, held that the levy had been passed through the Finance Act 2013 without following the procedure the Constitution requires, so it never became valid law.
‘Without recourse’
Despite that ruling, and while review petitions against it were pending, a three-judge Supreme Court bench including Justice Akhtar granted leave in June 2022 on substantially the same constitutional questions and expressly contemplated reconsidering the earlier decision.
“The course adopted in the subsequent order, authored by Justice Munib Akhtar, raises serious concerns regarding judicial discipline, legal norms and institutional propriety, particularly when the earlier determination remained operative and was already the subject of review proceedings,” Justice Aminuddin wrote.
Later benches must give “due regard” to earlier rulings, he said, and a later grant of leave cannot by itself review, modify or displace an earlier decision. Reconsidering the 2021 judgment “without recourse to the appropriate judicial mechanism” was inconsistent with those principles. “Judicial independence must be exercised consistently with judicial discipline, restraint and institutional decorum,” he wrote.
The two-member FCC bench, which also included Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, found no error in the 2021 judgment and ruled that it “shall remain undisturbed”.
Courts at odds
The Federal Constitutional Court was created through recent constitutional amendments to take over constitutional cases from the Supreme Court, a change critics say has weakened judicial independence. This week, Islamabad High Court Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani resigned, saying the 26th and 27th Amendments had “compromised” the independence of the judiciary.
