ISLAMABAD: Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar on Thursday said that the coalition government demands for a full court bench to address issues surrounding the upcoming elections in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Speaking to international media, the law minister maintained that “elections should be held [for the national and provincial assembly] at the same time”.
Following the Supreme Court (SC)’s suo motu notice and its judgement in the polls delay case, the law minister said legal consultations were ongoing.
In a recent ruling of SC ordering elections in Punjab to be held on May 14, the ruling coalition has taken a hard stance, saying “people should know the way the Constitution and law were being mocked”, and had announced it will bring a resolution against the verdict in the National Assembly on Thursday (yesterday).
The development comes despite the Election Commission (ECP)’s retreat in accordance with the apex court’s order as it has set the election process in motion.
“The constitution states that the ECP is burdened with the responsibility of conducting elections,” he said while adding that “the mechanism for holding elections exists according to the constitution” implying that the court orders were contrary to it. While talking about the controversial dissolution of the Punjab Assembly, he said that the matter was first referred to the Lahore High Court. The Punjab governor never signed the summary sent by the chief minister and 48 hours later the assembly dissolved on its own.
“A nine-member bench began hearing the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) polls delay case after the chief justice took a suo motu notice of the matter,” he said, “two judges had already opined on the matter while two others recused themselves from hearing the case after expressing their opinion.” He also lamented that the requests for a full court hearing were not entertained by the five-member bench later on.
He further said that “petitions [pertaining to elections] are sub judice in the high courts of Punjab and K-P, there are security risks involved in both provinces, the federal cabinet declared that the ‘minority judgement’ is unacceptable, the court did not even listen to the political parties, the federal cabinet has expressed concerns over the [recent] SC judgment” and that “senior judges are being kept away from the bench”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed.