PESHAWAR, Oct 21: The Peshawar High Court Bar Association on Monday expressed reservations about the mechanism for appointments to the recently advertised civil judge posts and demanded that the positions be filled through the National Testing Service (NTS) examination to ensure fairness of the process.

The demand was made through a resolution, which the PHCBA general body passed during an emergency meeting, where President of the association Ishtiaq Ibrahim was in the chair.

The participants in the resolution demanded that the candidates for the recently announced 77 posts of civil judges should have at least three years experience of practising law and that interview marks be 25 to prevent manipulation of the entire process.

They also said the interview panel should also have senior lawyers, including Barrister Zahoorul Haq, Abdul Lateef Afridi and Ghulam Nabi Khan.

They demanded future appointment of additional district and sessions judges through the mechanism suggested by PHCBA.

Besides Ishtiaq Ibrahim, PHCBA Secretary General Imran Khan Matta and office-bearers Abdul Lateef Afridi, Ghulam Nabi, Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah, Hazrat Said and Ali Gohar also spoke on the occasion.

The speakers said recently, the high court had advertised 77 posts of civil judges for which examination would be conducted by the high court in eight subjects.

They said there was a need to ensure that appointments to the posts in question should be made in a very transparent manner and that could be done through the NTS examination.

Ghulam Nabi said in past, such appointments were made by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission but the high court had ruled that in future, such appointments would be made by the high court.

He said PHCBA had apprehensions that the candidates favoured by influential people would to appointed civil judges, and therefore, it believed that the examination should not be conducted by the high court to ensure transparency and fairness of the process.

The PHCBA office-bearer also alleged that some former chief justices had appointed their blue-eyed people as judges.

Other speakers complained that the advertisement had no mention of experience and stated that a law graduate could apply for the posts and in that case, even those not associated with the law profession could apply for the posts.