Pakistani lawyer and co-analyst on the show “Ikhtalafi Note” Saad Rasool, responding to a question regarding the reference filed to de-seat the 26 dissident Punjab Assembly members of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf said that if the election commission of Pakistan fails to submit a decision before the 26 of May then the party’s declaration would be deemed to be the “final word” on the matter, and the dissident members of the party would stand disqualified. He further expanded that it was not the prerogative of the election commission to decide whether the dissident members should stand disqualified or not; instead, the commission’s only responsibility was to issue a notification of their disqualification. The lawyer underscored that the constitution was very clear on the matter of disqualification of dissident members, and it was clearly stated in the articles present in the constitution. He re-emphasized that it was not up to the discretion of the ECP to decide on the matter, and the ECP could not deliberate on the matter and establish a case for the non-disqualification of the dissident members. The lawyer, however, noted that the decision of the ECP could be challenged in the court for further deliberation and to decide upon the time period of the disqualification.
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Saad Rasool underlined that the Supreme Court had already set a precedent if the ECP delays issuing a notification. He reminded that when Yousaf Raza Gillani was the Prime Minister, a bench headed by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary had convicted him. However, Fehmida Mirza, the then Speaker of the National Assembly, refused to de-notify the sitting prime minister using her constitutional power upon which the case was once again referred to the court. The court then directed the ECP to move the summary of the de-notification of Yousaf Raza Gillani on the said date and submit it before the court before 5 o’clock in the evening.
Similarly, if the ECP tries to delay the conviction of the dissident member, a petition could be filed in the court seeking the disqualification of the members. He added, in that case the court has the power to instruct the ECP to submit a summary of the disqualification before the court.
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Finally, he said that the disqualification was imminent as the Speaker of the assembly, along with the party leader, maintained that the members had indeed defected from the party’s directives.
To clarify, earlier, PML-N’s Hamza Shahbaz won the election to become the chief minister of Punjab. He bagged 197 votes in his favor, including 26 votes from the defecting members of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf. The party then moved a petition in the LHC seeking disqualification of the defecting members, upon which the court ordered the ECP to submit a response before it.
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