The Supreme Court has rejected the top court justices’ appeal over their jail period sentence and upheld the lower court’s verdict, thus stripping the duo of their posts at the apex court.
The Criminal Court had earlier convicted the now former Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and former Judge Ali Hameed to jail time of one year, seven months and six days over undue influence on the judiciary.
The justices had appealed the verdict at the High Court. The appellate court upheld the Criminal Court’s verdict, declaring that evidence presented during the closed trial proved that the former justices had been influencing judges of lower courts to manipulate verdicts since the beginning of 2016 until February 1 this year.
Despite the High Court’s decision to uphold the lower court’s ruling, the court has mitigated the sentence imposed on the justices to a serve time of one year and 2 months.
The legal punishment for the levied charges is jail time of nine months and eighteen days.
The Supreme Court on Sunday rejected the High Court verdict appeal, stating that the verdict was not in violation of the law or constitution and did not require a review process. The appeal was concluded after rejection from the top court, hence upholding the lower court’s verdict.
Following the recently ratified amendment to the Judicature Act, both top court justices have been stripped of their posts at the top court. The amendment states that if an appellate court finds a judge guilty of a criminal offence, the procedures declared in Article 154 of the Constitution will not applicable and the judge will be removed from office.
Despite the Supreme Court’s decision, the lawyers of the two former justices maintain that the duo holds their posts in office, stating that the justices can again appeal their verdict as it was not rejected by the judges’ bench but the registrar of the Supreme Court.
The lawyers, in their statement, further revealed that the two justices will request to review their verdict again at the top court, claiming that the appeal was rejected without consideration to the concerns raised by the defenses’ legal brief.
Whilst the lawyers insist the appeal rejection was made by the top court registrar, the case summary by the Supreme Court states that the decision was made by the judges’ bench as all appeals are directly submitted to the bench.
In addition to the duo’s sentences, former CJ Saeed was also recently found guilty of ordering to shut down the Supreme Court's Government E-letter Management System (GEMS) in the wake of the February 1 ruling. He has thus been convicted of obstructing state functioning, and sentenced to four months and 24 days in jail. He, along with Ali Hameed, is also undergoing trial over terrorism charges.
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