A top court seven-member bench headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, and Justice Musarrat Hilali will hear the case.
ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-Jan 1st, 2023) The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday officially set a date for the hearing of a crucial case regarding lifetime disqualification.
A top court seven-member bench, presided over by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, is scheduled to convene tomorrow (Tuesday) to deliberate on the matter of lifetime disqualification for lawmakers.
Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, and Justice Musarrat Hilali are the other members of the bench.
The proceedings are slated to commence at 11 a.m.
Last week, the Supreme Court took an unprecedented step by releasing an advertisement in various newspapers, seeking input from prospective candidates with an interest in contesting general elections, particularly in relation to the issue of lifetime disqualification.
The advertisement explicitly invited interested candidates to submit detailed written responses to the Supreme Court if they wished to contribute their insights on the matter.
The focal point of this case revolves around the interpretation of Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of Pakistan, which stipulates the prerequisites for a member of parliament to be deemed 'sadiq and ameen' (honest and righteous). In 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously concluded that disqualification imposed under this constitutional provision is tantamount to a lifetime ban.
This legal precedent was set when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faced disqualification on July 28, 2017, in connection with the Panama papers references. Similarly, the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) also encountered disqualification under the same article earlier in the year in the Toshakhana case.
It is noteworthy that the dynamics of this legal landscape underwent a significant alteration in June, when the then-coalition government introduced an amendment to the Elections Act 2017. The amendment effectively curtailed the duration of lawmaker disqualification to a maximum of five years, a departure from the previously established lifetime ban under Article 62(1)(f).
