ISLAMABAD - Pakistan People’s Party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari yesterday said that the PPP will knock every door to get justice for former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani after the Islamabad High Court dismissed the plea against election of Sadiq Sanjrani as Senate chairman.
Bilawal said that the PPP believed in supremacy of the constitution, which bars calling into question the proceedings of Parliament or ruling of the speaker or the chairman, in Senate’s case. “There is no question on the supremacy of the Parliament and the Constitution,” he clarified.
The PPP chairman said his party respected the independence of judiciary and fought for it in the past but the Pakistan Democratic Movement candidate Senator Yousaf Raza Gillani had challenged the decision of a presiding officer of the polling station in the Senate Hall who rejected seven votes identifying them as the ones obtained by Gillani.
Bilawal said that “theft of Chairman Senate elections through foul play by a presiding officer” was a litmus test for the system as “it may get replicated” in future thus undermining the very credibility of the democratic institutions.
He further said that PPP would knock every door and raise the issue at every forum as this ‘electoral theft’ will not be allowed to sustain and Yousaf Raza Gillani would become Chairman Senate because he is the genuinely and legally elected chairman.
Earlier, the IHC dismissed the plea filed by Yousaf Raza Gillani against election of Sadiq Sanjrani as the Senate Chairman.
The court hoped that supremacy of Parliament will be ensured and parliament’s issues would be resolved in the Parliament. The verdict further stated that the court cannot intervene in the parliamentary affairs under Article 69 of the Constitution.
The petition, which was filed by lawyer of PPP candidate for chairmanship of upper house of the Parliament, had prayed the court to stop Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani from performing the official duties while declaring results of Senate chairman elections and rejection of 7 votes by the presiding officer as null and void.
The petition had named presiding officer Syed Muzzafar Hussain Shah, the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, the Senate Secretariat and Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani as respondents in the case. The petition had prayed to declare Gillani as chairman senate while accepting the rejected votes.