Pakistani parliamentary panel picks a judge third on seniority list to head Supreme Court

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A parliamentary panel on Tuesday recommended a judge who was third on the seniority list of a panel of judges to head the Supreme Court of Pakistan, government officials said Tuesday, a move which virtually blocked the elevation of the senior-most judge and is likely to further deepen a lingering political crisis.

Under the constitution, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government will now formally send a summary to President Asif Ali Zardari to appoint Yahya Afridi as the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Afridi’s name was third on the list of a three-judge panel that was considered by a committee.

The government issued no clarification for ignoring two other judges, Mansoor Ali Shah and Munib Akhtar, for the office of the chief justice.

Azam Nazeer Tarar, the minister for Law and Justice, told reporters that the committee has sent the name of Afridi “with a two-third majority” to the premier.

The party of Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which is part of the parliamentary committee, boycotted Tuesday’s meeting that was held in Islamabad to pick the top judge.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, was in favor of Shah’s appointment as the chief justice.

Tuesday’s government move comes days before the Chief Justice Qazi Faez Esa retires after completing his term. It also came a day after the parliament approved controversial changes to the constitution, empowering a 12-member parliamentary panel to pick a senior judge to replace the outgoing chief justice.

The new amendments to the government have been criticized by Khan’s popular opposition party and many lawyers, who have in recent days had vowed that they would protest if Shah wasn’t appointed as the chief justice.

Ahsan Iqbal, a Cabinet minister who is part of the parliamentary committee that finally picked Afridi, defended the decision. He said the parliamentary committee with a majority vote had decided to appoint Afridi as the chief justice.

But Afridi’s appointment is expected to further deepen a political turmoil, which began in 2022 after Khan was ousted from the power through a no-confidence vote in parliament.

He has been behind bars since 2023 after his conviction in a graft case.

Khan has so far been embroiled in more than 150 cases and has been sentenced in several, including to three years, 10 years, 14 years and seven years to be served concurrently under Pakistani law. Khan’s convictions were later overturned in appeals, but he can’t be freed because of other pending cases against him.