The Supreme Court and dual nationals

It makes no sense to stop an ordinary dual nationality petitioner while allowing dual national elite to rule Pakistan.

KARACHI: The Supreme Court be praised. We now have a clearer understanding of what a dual national can and cannot do. A dual national can vote but cannot be a parliamentarian — Article 63 of the Constitution does not permit that. A dual national can be a civilian but cannot join the army — the army law makes it clear that you can fight for only one country at one time. A dual national cannot be trusted on matters of national importance — the Supreme Court rightly thinks that their loyalties are divided and they could well be batting for both teams.

If all this is true, then how come we have provincial governors, State Bank of Pakistan governors, heads of political parties and a large number of senior bureaucrats, who are dual nationals and continue to hold positions of great national importance. The Supreme Court judgment has established an important principle. Dual nationals cannot be trusted on matters that have significant implications for the state of Pakistan. If that is the case, could we ask the Supreme Court to take a suo-motu notice and disqualify all government servants, governors and heads of political parties, who hold dual nationalities, from the positions they currently hold? It makes no sense to stop an ordinary dual nationality petitioner from even taking up an important issue, while allowing the ruling elite with similar dual nationalities to rule Pakistan. One also hopes that the ECP will receive strength from the Supreme Court’s judgment and will find a foolproof method to filter out dual nationals from the forthcoming elections.

Naeem Sadiq

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2013.