Supreme Court of Pakistan Saturday allowed five Senators-elect to participate in voting for new chairman Senate and Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued their nonfictions conditionally. The court decided to constitute a larger bench to settle the matter of their dual nationality.
The returned candidates include Ch Muhammad Sarwar of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), independent and backed by PML-N Haroon Akhtar Khan while Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's sister, Sadia Abbasi and Nuzhat Sadiq on women reserved seats and Kauda Babar from Balochistan.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar heard the arguments of counsel for the five Senators-elect at length on a point whether the surrender made by the said Senators-elect was permanent in nature or revocable.
However, legal opinion presented by Bilal Hassan Minto, amicus curiae changed the direction of the discussion when he said the question whether the renunciation made by the Senators-elect of their foreign nationality was in permanent in nature was of no use for the bench. He said a person stood permanently disqualified to contest election for a public office the moment he/she acquired nationality of another country. He also referred to law and English dictionaries to explain the meaning of "acquisition." He further said that the Pakistani court had no jurisdiction to interpret foreign laws and had to decide the matter in accordance with the local laws.
Earlier, counsel of Ch Sarwar stated that a person could regain his foreign nationality after the surrender but under certain conditions. He said the person would be treated as a fresh applicant if he applied to restore his surrendered citizenship. With the court's permission, Ch Sarwar also spoke at the rostrum and said he surrendered his UK nationality and returned to Pakistan to serve people.
He did not hold any public office but launched many projects of public welfare including installation of water filtrations plants. He had no plan to go back to the UK and added that the rights of overseas Pakistanis could not be ignored as they had been contributing a lot to the economy of their homeland in terms of remittances. At this, Justice Ijazul Ahsan made it clear that the court had a great respect for the Pakistanis living abroad and fully conversant of their rights.
"Apparently you surrendered your foreign nationality to hold public office in Pakistan," Justice Umar Ata Bandial told Sarwar, who undertook to submit an affidavit as to prove that he permanently gave up his foreign nationality. Chief Justice, however, observed that the affidavit would not be sufficient as the question had to be decided on the basis of law.
At one point of time, the chief justice mentioned that his own daughter also acquired US citizenship and she intended to run for an election after returning to Pakistan. "But it seems that my decision in this case may ruin her plan," he said.
Later, the chief justice observed that the matter needed a serious deliberation and interpretation of laws including Article 63 (1) (c) of the Constitution. Therefore, he said a seven-member larger bench would be constituted soon to decide the matter and gave an interim relief to the Senators-elect.
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