- Barrister Gohar Ali Khan request court to declare newly passed amendments as ‘unconstitutional’
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court, challenging the Election Amendment Act introduced bar independent lawmakers from joining a political party after a stipulated period.
PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court and prayed to the apex court to annul the Election Amendment Act.
An Article 184-3 application was filed through the mediation of Salman Akram Raja. The Federation and the Election Commission have been made parties in the petition.
Barrister Gohar Ali Khan requested the court to declare the newly passed amendments as “unconstitutional”.
“[…] The instant petition seeks to challenge, therefore, subversion of the democratic process made by the Impugned Act and is, therefore, a petition that raises questions of immense public importance with reference to the enforcement of the fundamental rights, conferred by the Constitution, in particular the rights guaranteed by Article 17,” read the petition.
“Past and closed transactions that have taken place in terms of the Constitution and the Elections Act, 2017 prior to the enactment of the Impugned Act cannot be undone through the deemed retrospectively purportedly assigned to the Impugned Act,” it added.
“The expression of the will of the people once made cannot be retrospectively subjected to restrictions that were non-existent at the time, and that are in any case unconstitutional. Actions taken by the people and their chosen representatives in the exercise of their constitutional rights cannot be undone by parliament through legislation. Such legislation suffers from malice in law.”
The petition was filed under Article 184(3) (original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court) of the Constitution.
Article 184(3) of the Constitution sets out the SC’s original jurisdiction and enables it to assume jurisdiction in matters involving a question of “public importance” with reference to the “enforcement of any of the fundamental rights” of Pakistan’s citizens.
The federal government and the Election Commission of Pakistan have been made respondents in the case.
The petition asked the apex court to restrain the ECP from allocating reserved seats for women and minorities that were “proportionate to the entitlement of the PTI” as per the SC’s July 12 order to other political parties.
It further requested the court to issue directives allocating those reserved seats to the PTI as per the list of candidates it had submitted to the ECP.
‘Elections (Second Amendment) Act, 2024’
A bill, titled “Elections (Second Amendment) Act, 2024” proposes changes to the Elections Act 2017 and is apparently aimed at circumventing the Supreme Court’s July 12 ruling, which granted the PTI reserved seats and set it to re-emerge as the single largest party in the National Assembly (NA).
PML-N lawmaker Bilal Azhar Kayani had introduced the bill in the NA a week ago, after which it had been rushed through the lower house’s Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs by 8-4 votes.
The move comes just a day after both houses of the Parliament — the NA and the Senate — passed the legislation amid strong opposition from the PTI. The Parliament saw hasty proceedings as both houses passed the bill after the suspension of the rules, without any debate on the issue.
While the bill had been considered by the NA committee, it was passed by the Senate without being referred to the relevant committee as required under the rules and the parliamentary traditions.
