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Summary
The National Assembly has approved the 19th constitutional amendment unanimously , Dunya News reported on Wednesday. According to the details, all the seven clauses of the amended bill were unanimously approved by National Assembly.Earlier, Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms and Senator Mian Raza Rabbani tabled the bill in the Assembly.Under the amendment, the Prime Minister will also have a say on the issue of judges appointment, while the number of judges of the Judicial Commission has been increased from two to four. The bill is aimed to give effect to changes made in light of suggestions made by the Supreme Court in an Oct 21 order after hearing several challenges to parliaments role in appointing judges of the apex court and high courts as set in the landmark Eighteenth Amendment passed in April.Major amendments proposed in the bill include one increasing the strength of a judicial commission headed by the Supreme Court chief justice, which must propose the names for appointments, from existing seven to nine including four, rather than two, senior-most judges of the apex court besides a former judge of the court to be named by the chief justice and fixing a minimum of 15 years experience for a lawyer to be nominated on the body by the Pakistan Bar Council, besides the federal law minister and the attorney-general.Some other amendments provide that an eight-member Parliamentary Committee that must finally approve the appointment of judges would hold its meetings in camera, send its approval or rejection of a nomination to the prime minister instead of the president who must finally notify an appointment and that it would be exempted from a bar on discussing the conduct of judges in parliament.
