Islamabad - Two petitioners Monday approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) challenging the newly-enacted Election Reforms Act (ERA) 2017.
The petitioners said that permitting a disqualified person to head a political party is against the spirit of constitution, Islam, Quran and Sunnah.
The petitioners, including Makhdoom Muhammad Niaz Inqilabi Advocate and Abrar Hussain Raza Advocate filed this petition and nominated federation of Pakistan through secretary Law & Justice, establishment division, cabinet division, election commission of Pakistan (ECP) through its Chairman and Secretary and former prime minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif as respondents.
Both the petitioners adopted before the court that Mian Nawaz Sharif was disqualified being Member National Assembly through a verdict of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on July 28 following which a notification was issued by the ECP.
They added that following his disqualification, Nawaz Sharif kept presiding over his party against whom petitioner and dozens others moved the ECP contending that a disqualified person cannot head a political party and also seeking cancellation of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) registration because it is registered in the name of a disqualified person.
The petitioner maintained that according to Article 5 of the political parties ordinance (PPO) 2002, a disqualified person cannot preside over any meeting of any political party. Neither a disqualified person can become president of a party nor head any political party, the petitioners said.
They contended that this matter is sub-judice before the ECP while treasury benches in the Senate of Pakistan introduced ERA 2017 and with a difference of one vote only, the bill was adopted.
They continued that Mian Nawaz Sharif committed horse trading to get votes in favour of the bill and therefore one party has cancelled membership of its one senator who voted in favour of this bill. Senate of Pakistan passed ERA 2017 after it was passed by the National Assembly on September 22, 2017.
The petitioners argued that ERA 2017 is against the basic scheme of the Constitution of Pakistan as no law can be passed against the Islamic injunctions. Furthermore, this ERA to the context of allowing a disqualified person to head the party is also in contraventions of Quran and Sunnah.
In this connection, they referred to an apex court’s judgment 1992 SCMR 2192 that says that the courts while construing the provisions of statutes should make efforts that the interpretation of the relevant provisions of the statutes should be inconsonance with the article 2-A of the Constitution and the ground norms of human rights.
The petitioners were of the view that a law should be made keeping in view legitimate needs of the people and not for a single person. That custom usage having force of law is that any disqualified person cannot head any political party but through this ERA something strange has been done against article 8 that allows legislative body to formulate laws according to custom usage having force of law. Therefore, they prayed to the court to declare the ERA 2017 as null & void, illegal, unlawful and against the constitution.