Daily Times

The Supreme Court’s three-member constitutional committee has removed Justice Ayesha Malik from the seven-member constitutional bench hearing intra-court appeals related to military court trials of May 9 suspects.

The third meeting of the constitutional committee, chaired by Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, was held with Justices Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Muhammad Ali Mazhar also in attendance.

Minutes from the meeting have been released.

During the meeting, the scheduling of cases related to civilian trials in military courts was reviewed. According to the minutes, Justice Ayesha Malik had already heard the May 9 military courts case. Consequently, the appeal against the decision remains pending before a seven-member intra-court appeal bench, which will now hear the case.

The matter concerning military courts has been referred to the Judicial Commission, which will nominate the seventh member for the bench.

The meeting decided to establish a separate branch for constitutional cases and to implement green tagging for categorising such cases.

It was also decided that under Article 186-A, the Supreme Court has the authority to transfer cases from one High Court to another.

Furthermore, the constitutional bench judges will hear five chamber appeals daily, and to manage the growing workload, the nominated constitutional judges will seek the assistance of civil judges.