Under the 26th Constitutional Amendment, the parliamentary committee on Tuesday nominated Justice Yahya Afridi as the 30th chief justice of Pakistan.
His appointment comes following the retirement of Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa.
The president approved the summary on the advice of PM Shehbaz Sharif following the recommendation of the special parliamentary committee.
Justice Yahya Afridi will take oath as the new chief justice of Pakistan for a term of three years, starting from October 26. The appointment has been made under the provisions of Articles 175A(3), 177, and 179 of the Constitution.
Committee meeting
The Special Parliamentary Committee, formed after the 26th constitutional amendment, held its meeting with nine out of 12 members in attendance to deliberate the three names for a top judge slot.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Senator Azam Nazir Tarar, Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, and Shaista Pervaiz; Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Farooq H Naek, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, and Syed Naveed Qamar; Rana Ansar of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Senator Kamran Murtaza of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) attended the meeting.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Barrister Ali Zafar, and SIC chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza abstained from the meeting.
The committee also deliberated on the names of Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, and Justice Munib Akhtar.
Who is Justice Yahya Afridi?
Justice Yahya Afridi enrolled as an advocate of the High Court in 1990 and as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 2004. He served as an Assistant Advocate General for the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and as a Federal Counsel for the government of Pakistan while in practice.
He was elevated to the bench of the Peshawar High Court as an Additional Judge in 2010 and was confirmed as a Judge of the Peshawar High Court on 15th March 2012.
Justice Yahya Afridi became the first judge from the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) to assume the office of the Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court when he took oath on 30th December 2016. He served in that office until his elevation as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 28th June 2018.