ISLAMABAD: Pakistani President Dr. Arif Alvi on Thursday nominated Justice Umar Ata Bandial as the new chief justice of the country, Pakistani state media reported.
Justice Bandial will succeed the incumbent Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed on February 2, 2022, the state-run Radio Pakistan reported.
Born on September 17, 1958 in Lahore, Justice Bandial received his elementary and secondary education in Lahore, Kohat, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
“He secured his B.A. (Economics) degree from Columbia University, USA followed by a Law Tripos degree from Cambridge University, UK and qualified as Barrister-at-Law from Lincoln’s Inn, London,” the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s website read.
In 1983, Justice Bandial enrolled as an advocate of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and later, as an advocate of the Supreme Court.
As a lawyer at the LHC, he dealt mostly with commercial, banking, tax and property matters. He also handled international commercial disputes and appeared in arbitration matters before the Supreme Court of Pakistan and international arbitral tribunals in London and Paris.
He was elevated as a judge of the Lahore High Court on December 4, 2004. Justice Bandial is one of the judges who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), issued by former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf, in November 2007.
He was reinstated as a judge of the Lahore High Court after the country’s lawyers succeeded in their movement for the restoration of the judiciary and constitution against the Musharraf regime.
Justice Bandial served as the chief justice of the Lahore High Court for two years until his elevation as a judge of the Supreme Court in June 2014.
During his stint as a judge of the high court and the apex court, Justice Bandial has issued judgments on a number of civil and commercial disputes, and in constitutional rights and public interest cases.
President Alvi names Justice Umar Ata Bandial as next chief justice of Pakistan
https://arab.news/rphev
President Alvi names Justice Umar Ata Bandial as next chief justice of Pakistan
- He has issued key verdicts in civil, constitutional and public interest cases
- Justice Bandial will take charge as the new chief justice on February 2, 2022
Pakistan says multilateralism in peril, urges global powers to prioritize diplomacy over confrontation
- The country tells the UN international security system is eroding, asks rival blocs to return to dialogue
- It emphasizes lowering of international tensions, rebuilding of channels of communication among states
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan warned the world community on Monday that multilateralism was “in peril” amid rising global tensions, urging major powers to revive diplomacy and dialogue to prevent a further breakdown in international security.
Speaking at a UN Security Council briefing, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, said the world was drifting toward confrontation at a time when cooperative mechanisms were weakening.
His comments came during a session addressed by Finland’s foreign minister Elina Valtonen, chairing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security body.
Formed out of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the OSCE was designed during the Cold War to reduce tensions, uphold principles of sovereignty and human rights and promote mechanisms for peaceful dispute resolution.
“Today, the foundational ethos of international relations, multilateralism, cooperation and indivisible security, as envisaged in the preamble of Helsinki Final Act, is perhaps facing its biggest challenge in decades,” Ahmed said. “The OSCE, too, is navigating a difficult geopolitical landscape, with conflict raging in the heart of Europe for nearly four years, depletion of trust and unprecedented strains on peaceful co-existence.”
He said a return to the “Helsinki spirit” of dialogue, confidence-building and cooperative security was urgently needed, not only in Europe but globally.
“This is not a matter of choice but a strategic imperative to lower tensions, rebuild essential channels of communication, and demonstrate that comprehensive security is best preserved through cooperative instruments, and not by the pursuit of hegemony and domination through military means,” he said. “Objective, inclusive, impartial, and principle-based approaches are indispensable for success.”
Ahmed’s statement came in a year when Pakistan itself fought a brief but intense war after India launched missile strikes at its city in May following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the assault, an allegation Islamabad denied while calling for a transparent international investigation.
The Pakistani diplomat said the international system was increasingly defined by bloc politics, mistrust and militarization, warning that such trends undermine both regional stability and the authority of multilateral institutions, including the UN itself.
He urged member states to invest more in preventive diplomacy and the peaceful settlement of disputes as reaffirmed by the Council in Resolution 2788.
Ahmad said Pakistan hoped the OSCE would continue reinforcing models of cooperative security and that the Security Council would back partnerships that strengthen international law and the credibility of multilateral frameworks.
The path forward, he added, required “choosing cooperation over confrontation, dialogue over division, and inclusive security over bloc-based divides.”
