FCC says not implementing SC's verdicts amounts to 'challenging the very framework of the legal system'

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Friday regretted the non-implementation of an earlier Supreme Court judgment in the sacked employees case , underlining that disregarding or delaying the implementation of the latter’s verdicts by the government amounts to “challenging the very framework of the legal system”. The observation came while hearing a set of contempt of court petitions against the Punjab government, as well as the federal government, for not implementing the Dec 17, 2021 SC judgement — a verdict which had converted the review hearings to the jurisdiction of Article 184(3) only to safeguard the fundamental right to livelihood of a number of sacked government employees.

Subsequently, review petitions were instituted against the 2021 judgement that had rendered almost 17,000 government employees jobless by holding as illegal and unconstitutional a PPP-era law, known as the Sacked Employees (Reinstatement) Ordinance Act 2010 (SERA), under which thousands of people were employed or promoted. On Friday, FCC judge, Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, emphasised that the orders of the SC, as the then-apex court before the 27th Constitutional Amendment , were “not merely recommendations or advisories but they are legal mandate that must be followed”. Justice Najafi was a member of a three-judge bench, which was headed by FCC Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan, that had taken up a set of contempt of court petitions on the non-implementation of the SC judgement. In a ten-page order, Justice Najafi observed that the decisions of the SC were the culmination of “vigorous legal scrutiny and deliberation intended to reflect upon the values and laws of the land”. “It is imperative to underline that in a constitution democracy the rule of law is not just a principle but…