PPP challenges Election Bill

Legislation paved the way for Nawaz to head party post-disqualification

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) also challenged an election bill that paved the way for an otherwise ineligible Nawaz Sharif to head his own faction of the Pakistan Muslim League.

 

The Election Bill 2017 was passed with a majority vote by the Senate through which the legal bar on a person to serve as an office-bearer of a political party if he is either not qualified to be, or disqualified from being, elected as a member of parliament under Article 63 of the Constitution is set to go.

The constitutional petition was filed in the Supreme Court by PPP Secretary General Nayyar Bukhari through senior lawyer Sardar Latif Khosa, making the federation, Nawaz Sharif, the National Assembly, the Senate and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as respondents.

Surprisingly, the PPP has requested the top court that the prime minister and members of his cabinet should be prohibited from accompanying Nawaz Sharif during his appearance before an accountability court, saying this violates the oath they have taken while assuming the state’s responsibility as ministers.



The PPP expressed the apprehension that if the body politics is allowed to be subverted by Nawaz Sharif, the way he is creating hate and attacking vital institutions and hurling insinuations on the judicial organ of the state, the trichotomy of power would be annihilated. “Nawaz Sharif is creating confusion, chaos, strife amongst the people.”

It is also submitted that the subordinate legislation like an act of parliament is bound to be in accordance with the injunctions of Islam. “The act is ultra vires of the fundamental rights of the citizens,” the petition read.