Coalition to boycott SC proceeding

The ruling coalition parties on Monday announced boycott of the Supreme Court proceedings on Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s appeal against the re-election of Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz, hours after an apex court bench declined to form a full court on the matter.

The ruling coalition, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and other allied parties, wanted the full court hearing of the petition filed by the PML-Quaid leader.

However, a three-member bench, led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, rejected the petition of the coalition parties in a short order on Monday evening. After the court ruling, the coalition parties went into a huddle to chalk out their new action plan.

“We reject the verdict and will boycott,” JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman told a press conference after the meeting. “Our demand is that a full court hear the case related to Punjab. We will accept whatever decision comes from the full court,” he added.

“The coalition thought the decision of the [three-judge] bench would not be considered impartial without the formation of a full bench, therefore, we suggested it. Unfortunately, the court did not consider our demand and rejected it,” he continued.

“The coalition government wants to give clear stance [on the apex court decision]. We will not be a part of case regarding Punjab chief minister and will boycott the bench,” Fazl, who is also the president of the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDM), said.

Flanked by the coalition leaders, including the PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and others, Fazl stressed that if institutions did not cooperate with the government, political uncertainty would increase.

“Government is the name of unity of institutions,” he emphasised. The Supreme Court proceedings stem from the re-election of Punjab chief minister last week, where Hamza Shahbaz of the PML-N contested against the PML-Q leader Pervaiz Elahi, who is also the speaker of the Punjab Assembly.

In the election, Elahi polled 186 votes against Hamza’s 179. However, Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari, who was chairing the session in place of Elahi, rejected the 10 votes of PML-Q lawmakers on the basis of a letter from the party President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

In the letter Shujaat stated that he had barred his party’s lawmakers from voting for Elahi. The deputy speaker then rejected the PML-Q’s votes in line with a Supreme Court ruling, which said that votes of dissident lawmakers would not be counted.

The next day, Elahi moved the Supreme Court, challenging the ruling of Dost Mazari. He took the stance that according to the Constitution, the parliamentary party leader, and not the party leader, decided on these matters.

A three-member Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhter, took up the plea at the Supreme Court’s Lahore Registry. On Monday, the coalition parties moved the court for the formation of the full court.

The PDM president termed the rejection of their plea by the bench “a biased decision”. He said that their lawyers “advised the court in accordance with the law, but instead of considering their plea, the bench rejected it. “Therefore, we will not appear before this bench,” Fazl said.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP Chairman and Foreign Minister Bilawal told reporters that the formation of the full court was a unanimous decision and demand of the ruling coalition parties, which was meant to ensure “the dignity of the court”.

PML-N leaders Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Ahsan Iqbal said that now it was the test of the Supreme Court, adding that the law and justice required that the judge or the bench recused if fingers were pointed at them.

The PML-N leaders also pointed to the de-seating of 20 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers, who voted against the party line in the election of Hamza Shehbaz as the chief minister in April this year, on the apex court’s order.

Read: Ruling coalition seething over SC ruling on Hamza's 'trustee CM' status

“Votes of our 20 members were removed, while the appeal [against their de-seating] is in the court,” Abbasi, the senior vice president of the PML-N, said. “Without the decision on the appeal, the current matter is going in the wrong direction,” he added.

The PML-N leaders said if PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s request for the de-seating of the 20 lawmakers was accepted, then the letter of PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain should also be equally respected.

Iqbal said that the party wanted that the people did not point fingers at the Supreme Court. “Imran Khan uses the judiciary after political defeat. Imran Khan advances his political agenda through the judiciary. We want to see the Supreme Court as an independent institution.”

Meanwhile, reacting to the verdict, PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz said on her official Twitter handle that the apex court decided against including “honest judges” on the bench because of the fear that flaws of their previous decisions would come to the fore.

“You took away our 20 votes [dissident PTI lawmakers] from us and you gave 10 votes of Q-League to PTI, so Parvaiz Elahi Sahib’s majority is your gift, my Lord!” Maryam Nawaz, daughter of PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif, wrote in another tweet.

Earlier, speaking alongside Foreign Minister Bilawal, JUI-F chief Fazl, Osama Qadri of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and other coalition partners at a joint press conference, Maryam expressed strong reservations to the bench’s composition.

“Our justice system is such that when a petition is filed, people already know what bench will be constituted and what decision will be given,” Maryam said. She alleged that the PML-N faced discrimination on multiple occasions.

“Since his [Hamza Shehbaz’s] election, can you tell me a single day when he was allowed to work in peace?” the PML-N leader asked. “This system of injustice cannot work,” she said in remarks backed by PPP Chairman Bilawal.

“It cannot be that three people decide the fate of this country. Three people cannot decide on whether this country will run on a democratic, elected or selected system,” the foreign minister told the reporters.

Pressing for the formation of the full court, the PPP chairman stressed: “We want things to proceed in accordance with the Constitution and for institutions to remain neutral. We are only saying that justice posits that a full court would hear the case.”

Fazl added that “people and their leaders should be protected by the law” and legal institutions, “shouldn’t have any conflict of interest or give the impression of being biased”. He contended that “the state is weakened due to their interference?”

The press conference came hours after the PPP and the PML-Q chief Shujaat Hussain filed applications in the apex court, seeking to become parties to the case. Shujaat said that he “wrote a letter to the Deputy Speaker on July 22”.

The PPP, in its application, cited senior party leader and former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani’s case where seven votes were rejected in the election for the Senate chairman last year. The petition added the PPP leaders “have always been victims of circumstances”.

Before the filing of the application, the Supreme Court had banned the entry of political leaders, citing “security concerns” raised due to a “crowd” gathering on the court premises. Sources told The Express Tribune that the passes issued to political parties were also cancelled.