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SJC REFERENCE 2007
By Pervaiz Buttar- Solicitor, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan

Since any detailed comments upon the outcome of the proceedings pending in the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan or the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) are uncalled for and proscribed by the SC guidelines the author intends to draw the attention of the discerned readers to the source materials of the legal issues currently debated in the SC by the counsels of the parties.

If we begin by approaching www.supremecourt.gov.pk and click on the SC Report Golden Jubilee Edition 2006, most source materials can be viewed on pages 137-147. These materials include:

a) Article 209 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – p 138;
b) Code of Conduct for Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts – pp139-142;
c) Inquiry Procedure- contained in a Gazzette Notification of November 2005- pp 143-147.

Now we can turn to the allegations contained in the Reference filed against the Honorable Chief Justice of Pakistan by the President of Pakistan on 9 March 2007. It is available in the Dawn e papers of 21 March 2007 and comprises of seven pages and spread over 36 paragraphs. For comparison with the Australian materials the readers can visit the following:

1. Guide to Judicial Conduct (second edition) published by the Council of Chief Justices of Australia by the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration Incorporated, 2007 (available at www.aija.org.au).
2. Thomas, Judicial Ethics (second edition) 2002, LBC.
3. Various cases of Australian Courts relating to conduct of Mr. Justice Lional Murphy on www.austlii.edu.au. 

Should the readers of Sada-e-Watan have any questions they can visit our website www.buttarcaldwell.com.au and contact the author. We will update the readers with further details relating to the issues and provide summary arguments by counsels in this historic case currently before the SC.