NA speaker claims he stands vindicated after LHC order

LAHORE/ISLAMABAD:

 

The office of the National Assembly speaker has claimed that the Lahore High Court (LHC) order — in which acceptance of resignations of 43 PTI lawmakers was suspended — has upheld Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf's own decision.

A day after the speaker said he had not yet received the court’s order nor was it in his knowledge, a detailed judgement reached his desk on Friday, following which a statement was released by his office saying that “PTI's propaganda” of restoring seats has been refuted and proved false.

After dragging his feet on the process for months, the NA speaker had accepted the resignations earlier this year. The move was almost immediately followed by ECP’s de-notification of 123 MNAs.

However, the LHC on Wednesday suspended the de-notification orders of 43 party lawmakers and issued notices to the federal government and the ECP.
The high court also issued notices to the NA speaker as well as the election watchdog for submission of replies on the next hearing.

In the statement, the NA speaker maintained that by “simply suspending the notification of the election commission regarding the 35 resignations, the body has been prohibited from conducting re-election in these constituencies until the hearing is completed”.

However, interestingly, the detailed LHC verdict released on Friday, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, stated that “the notification of the NA speaker on January 22 has not been attached (though challenged) and thus no interim relief can be considered to that extent.”

It added that the notification of the “Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) remained suspended and the election schedule for the seats shall not be announced by the ECP”.

“The process of by-elections to these shall remain suspended,” the verdict read.

‘Proved right’

The statement released by the speaker’s office on Friday said the NA speaker’s stance was “proved right”, adding that “all matters were decided by looking at the constitutional and legal aspects”.

It further said Ashraf not only considered the issue of resignations with great restraint but PTI members were also repeatedly summoned.

“Despite repeated summons, PTI members did not come and kept demanding acceptance of resignations,” the statement added. “Objections were raised after the NA speaker accepted the resignations, which was unconstitutional.”

It may be noted that the speaker on Thursday said he had not yet received the LHC's order, adding that any future course of action would be determined only after he obtained it.

Subsequently, the NA Secretariat asked the PTI members not to attend the session until the written order of the court was issued.

In a video posted on Twitter by the NA’s official account earlier, the speaker was seen responding to a question about his views surrounding speculations that some of PTI’s MNAs might be interested in returning to the lower house.

Without providing many details, Ashraf had said as the LHC’s order was not in front of him, he could neither read it nor had any details on the matter shared with him.

Meanwhile, in a statement after the verdict, the ECP issued a statement on Wednesday dispelling the impression about the suspension of by-polls on the seats of the 43 MNAs.

An ECP spokesperson said the order would not affect the schedule of the polls already announced for Mar 16 and 19 on a total of 30 seats in Punjab as the seats involved in the case before the court were separate from those where by-polls had been announced.

Order

In a detailed verdict on the petition filed by Riaz Fatyana and other makers of the PTI, the LHC noted that the request for interim relief was two-fold.

“It is contended [in the petition] that since the petition has been admitted to hearing primarily because it engages significant questions of law, interim relief must follow indubitably. This contention has the support of respectable authority,” the order stated.

“The process of by-elections should also be restrained as any such process entails expending of enormous amounts of money which will be laid to waste if these petitions were to be allowed, ultimately.”

On both these accounts, the court directed that till the next date of hearing, the impugned notification dated January 25, 2023, issued by ECP shall remain suspended and the election schedule for the seats shall not be announced by the commission.

The process of by-elections to these seats shall remain suspended.

Interestingly, the order stated that the notification of the NA speaker dated January 22, 2023, has not been attached (though challenged) and thus no interim relief can be considered to that extent.

“Learned counsel relies upon Article 64 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 to contend that the process of tendering of resignation has been laid down and it has to be under the hand of the member of the National Assembly or the Senate as the case may be. The resignations, in this case, were tendered en bloc which were accepted by the deputy speaker of the National Assembly.”

However, the verdict stated that the NA speaker did not rely upon the ruling of the deputy speaker and issued letters to the individual members for the verification process and this was done in terms of paragraph `e' of sub-rule 2 of rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007.

“Learned counsel also relies upon a plethora of judgments of the superior courts to contend that the process of verification is an essential precondition and simply tendering or resignation is not sufficient. Once again, a letter was written to the Members reiterating the process of verification of resignation.”

Later on, a notification was issued by the ECP dated January 2, 2023, while relying upon a notification issued by the NA speaker dated January 22 whereby the resignations of the petitioners were accepted and relying upon that the commission de-notified the MNAs mentioned in that notification and who are now the petitioners in this petition, the ruling stated.

It said that the learned counsel primarily relies upon judgments of the superior courts, the rules of the National Assembly as also the conduct of the speaker in calling the lawmakers for verification to contend that the procedural requirements of the acceptance of the resignations was not complied with and this makes the impugned notification ultra vires and without lawful authority.

Since this petition raises important questions of law, it is admitted to regular hearing, it added.