18th Amendment: SC orders Article 175-A back to parliament

18th Amendment: SC orders Article 175-A back to parliament   New in Urdu   ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry announced the Supreme Court's verdict on the petitions challenging certain clauses of the 18th Amendment on Thursday, The apex court in its decision ordered that Article 175-A, detailing the amendments to the procedure of appointing superior court judges, be sent back to the parliament for review. "Parliament is asked to review Article 175-A, for it has harmed judiciary's freedom," Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry stated. Earlier, a 17-judge full court had on September 30 reserved its verdict after over four months of hearing on petitions challenging various aspects of the 18th Amendment, including the mechanism approved by parliament for appointment of superior court judges. The bench had started hearing the petitions on May 24 and discussed threadbare all aspects of the amendment, especially Article 175-A, which, according to the petitioners, impinges on the independence of judiciary.   The petitions also challenged the renaming of the NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which, it was argued, would result in dividing the national polity on linguistic and ethnic lines, deletion of Article 17(4) relating to elections in political parties and insertion of Article 63-A empowering heads of parties to have a final say in case of defections.   The decision to announce the verdict has been taken after a number of conclaves held by the judges on the bench to exchange points of view on the proceedings which were closed last month. DINS Media Team