The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday approved the Supreme Court once again, seeking clarification on whether to follow the amended Election Act 2017 or the top court’s judgment on the matter of allocating reserved seats to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
In its plea on Thursday, the ECP maintained that it had received the National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq’s letter, which stated that the reserved seats should be allocated to the opposition parties after the amendments to the Election Act.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court announced its long-awaited 8-5 majority verdict, declaring PTI eligible for reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies. Despite the 8-5 split, 11 out of the 13 judges had declared the PTI a parliamentary party.
However, a lot has happened since the initial verdict was issued in July.
First, the government passed a new election law that barred PTI-backed ‘independent’ lawmakers from joining the party. The top court reprimanded the ECP for not fully implementing its short verdict.
And then, the National Assembly speaker wrote a letter to the ECP, telling it that the court order could not be acted upon.
In its plea today, the electoral watchdog maintained that when it previously sought clarification on the matter, the said law was not in place. It sought the top court’s guidance on whether to follow the parliamentary law or the Supreme Court’s decision.
It states that the commission was willing to comply with Apex Court’s September 14th order; however, doing so would violate the newly enacted parliamentary law.
The Election Commission informed the court that denotified lawmakers had also approached it, seeking implementation of the amended law.
The ECP highlighted two “particular provisions” — amendments to Section 66 and Section 104-A, which it said, were relevant in this case.
The amendment to Section 66 of the Elections Act, says that if a candidate does not submit a declaration of his affiliation with a political party to the returning officer (RO) before seeking allotment of the election symbol, they shall be “deemed to be considered as an independent candidate and not a candidate of any political party”.
Meanwhile, the amendment to Section 104 reads that the declaration, consent or affidavit, by whatever name called, of an independent returned candidate once given for joining a political party shall be irrevocable and cannot be substituted or withdrawn.
“As the SC judgement was rendered based on the law prior to the enactment of the amendment, the said judgment is now incapable of implementation,” it said, noting that it is the amended Election Act that shall prevail and supersede the prior ruling.
Earlier on Monday, Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar had ruled out the reallocation of 80 MNAs of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) to PTI, saying after the recent amendments to the Elections Act, it was not possible to “reverse the clock” regarding the status of lawmakers.
Tarar said various previous court verdicts have maintained that parliament’s right to legislation would have greater priority over the apex court’s verdicts. The minister said he was “hurt” by the “strict words” used for the two dissenting judges in the detailed note.
“All judges in the court are equal and seniority does not weigh on decisions … difference is the beauty of debate and logic whenever we look at something in-depth and different opinions emerge and something better is found from them,” he added.
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