Pakistan selects top judge under new process, faces criticism from main opposition party

Islamabad: Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday approved the selection of the next chief justice, who was chosen through a new process that the government's opponents say is designed to undermine judicial independence.

Justice Yahya Afridi, the third most senior judge after the outgoing chief justice, was picked by a parliamentary panel following a constitutional amendment that changed the way the top judge is appointed, officials said.

Afridi will replace the outgoing chief justice, who retires on Friday, for a three-year term, Law Minister Azam Tarar said.

Previously the most senior judge after the chief justice automatically became top judge. But the government and its allies amended the selection process in a hurried session of parliament on Sunday, which lasted all night and concluded close to dawn on Monday.

"Two thirds of the membership of the committee decided to nominate Justice Yahya Afridi," Tarar, who is a member of the 12-member committee, said.

The new process was opposed by Pakistan's main opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which said it is an attempt to subvert judicial independence.

Their objections could be backed by some senior lawyers who also said they opposed the new appointment process, analysts said.

PTI is also a member of the parliamentary panel that selected Afridi, but it boycotted proceedings and had already announced that it would protest if the senior most judge was not made chief justice.

"There will be a final call - do or die - for a campaign to block the entire country till the toppling of this government," PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief executive of the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, said before Afridi's appointment.

Khan has been in jail for over a year, and the Supreme Court has become a battleground between him and the government, ruling on issues ranging from a controversial national election to a potential military court trial for Khan and his supporters.