SC bench to take up lifetime disqualification case today

Contradiction between judicial decision and parliamentary legislation set to be resolved

ISLAMABAD:

A seven-member bench of the apex court will hear the matter of lifetime disqualification on Tuesday, January 2, with a little over a month to go for before the country heads to general polls on February 8.

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa will head the bench comprising Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali.

The apex court will deliberate whether the disqualification of a lawmaker is for a lifetime under Article 62 of the Constitution or for five years, as legislated by the parliament.

The seven-member larger bench will hear the case at 11.30am today. A public advertisement has also been issued to newspapers announcing the hearing of the case.

Disqualification conundrum

Military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq added Article 62(1)(f) to the Constitution through the 8th Amendment. Interestingly, in the last 38 years, no elected government could abrogate Article 62(1)(f), which was included in the Constitution during the era of dictatorship.

When a five-member larger bench of the Supreme Court disqualified PML-N supremo and former premier Nawaz Sharif in the Panama Papers case under Article 62(1)(f) for failing to declare unclaimed wages earned as an executive of a Dubai-based company owned by his son, the question arose as to how long the period of his ineligibility to contest the polls would last.

Read Disqualification: CJP Isa flags glaring mismatch

Then a larger bench, in its judgment authored by former Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial, ruled that the disqualification period under Article 62(1)(f) would be for life. Similar to the one that decided the Panama Papers case, Justice Ijazul Ahsan was also a member of the bench that set the term of disqualification for life.

An SC judge, Justice (retd) Azmat Saeed Sheikh, who was a member of the same bench, wrote in his opinion that the top court had the authority to interpret the Constitution but not to amend it.

Legal experts have termed the disqualification of a politician under Article 62(1)(f) as equivalent to life imprisonment.

In the last week of June last year, parliament through Section 232 of the Election Act (Amendment) Bill, set the period of disqualification to five years under Article 62(1)(f).