Press Council of Pakistan pleads to become party in media commission case | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Press Council of Pakistan pleads to become party in media commission case

ISLAMABAD: The Press Council of Pakistan (PCP) has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to become a party in the case filed by senior journalists Hamid Mir and Absar Alam.

A two-member bench of Supreme Court comprising Justice Jawwad S Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain will resume hearing in the petitions of senior journalists seeking the formation of an accountability commission for media today (Tuesday).

PCP Chairman Shafqat Mehmood Abbasi has filed a petition through his counsel Syed Ali Zafar and Zahid Nawaz Cheema stating that PCP is an autonomous and independent statutory body constituted under the provisions of the Press Council of Pakistan Ordinance 2002 with the objective that the press must be accountable to the society to serve the public and safeguard the rights of masses.

The petition says that PCP functions to ensure the freedom of press and maintain the highest professional and ethical standard to revise, enforce and implement the ethical code of practice in newspapers, news agencies, editors and journalists as laid down in schedule to the ordinance to receive complaints about violation of ethical code of practice.

The petitioner stated that PCP is authorised to appoint an inquiry commission to decide complaints but the petitioners (journalists) have omitted to implead this statutory body either deliberately or through oversight and directly approached SC under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution. He requested that PCP might be made a party to the petition in the interest of justice.

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