ISLAMABAD: Justice Saqib Nisar on Saturday took oath as the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP).
He is the 25th chief justice of the Supreme Court who will serve on the post until January 17, 2019. President Mamnoon Hussain had accorded approval to appoint him as the CJP on December 7.
The president administered the oath at Presidency. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also attended the ceremony besides Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, governors of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, president of Azad Jammu Kashmir, federal ministers, chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, services chiefs, judges, lawmakers and diplomats.
Justice Nisar took charge of the office after Anwar Zaheer Jamali retired on December 30.
Later, Justice Nisar called on Mamnoon Hussain who congratulated him on his appointment as the CJP and wished him well in discharge of his new responsibilities.
Later, President Mamnoon, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and newly sworn in chief justice shook hands with the participants of the ceremony and interacted with them.
The participants also congratulated the CJP.
Nisar was born on January 18, 1954 in Lahore. He passed his matriculation from Cathedral High School, Lahore and graduated from Government College, Lahore. After his Bachelor of Law from the Punjab University in 1979-80, he started working as a lawyer and was enrolled as an advocate of the high court in 1982 and as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 1994.
He was elevated as judge of the high court on May 22, 1998 and as a judge of the Supreme Court on February 18, 2010. He had been practicing in civil, commercial, tax and constitutional law and appeared in several constitutional cases both in the high court and Supreme Court.
The CJP was elected as secretary general of the Lahore High Court Bar Association in 1991 and was appointed the federal law secretary on March 29, 1997. It is for the first time in the country’s history that someone from the bar had been appointed to such post.
Justice Nisar was a member of a delegation representing Pakistan in “International Youth Conference” held in Libya, Tripoli in 1973. He represented Pakistan in International Conference held in Wilton Park and also led a human rights delegation to Switzerland. He participated in a conference held in Oslo on “Islam and Democracy” where he read a paper on the “Role of the Courts in Islamic Democratic Society”.
The CJP has been a part time lecturer at Punjab Law College and Pakistan College of Law, where he taught civil procedure code and the constitution.
Separately, Justice Saqib Nisar has formed a five-judge larger bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa to resume hearing of the Panama Papers case from January 4. The CJP will not be part of the new bench. The Panamagate case is investigating the prime minister and his close family members over alleged investments in offshore companies.