A constitutional bench (CB) of the Supreme Court on Monday live-streamed its proceedings for the first time as it resumed hearing a set of review pleas against the top court’s ruling that had declared the PTI eligible for reserved seats.
In its July 12, 2024 short order, eight out of 13 judges ruled that 39 out of a list of 80 MNAs were and are the returned candidates of the PTI, setting it to emerge as the single largest party in the National Assembly.
However, the ruling had not been implemented by the National Assembly, while the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had raised some objections. The review petitions against the SC order had been filed by the PML-N, the PPP and the ECP.
Initially, a full-strength 13-member CB led by Justice Aminuddin Khan took up the review pleas earlier this month. However, Justices Ayesha A. Malik and Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi declared the applications as inadmissible during the first hearing and were not part of the subsequent proceedings.
Justice Aminuddin has noted that the two judges had not been excluded by the CB itself, but had stepped back voluntarily.
Justice Ayesha had formally complained to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi about her dissenting order not being uploaded to the SC’s website.
In her judgement, she had criticised the ECP for not implementing the earlier order, observing that it would “not only undermine the authority of the Supreme Court but also erode the foundational values of democracy itself”.
Tug-of-war over reserved seats
In its detailed verdict on the reserved seats case, which was authored by senior puisne judge Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, the SC had observed that the ECP’s numerous “unlawful acts and omissions” had “caused confusion and prejudice to PTI, its candidates and the electorate who voted for PTI”.
It had also castigated the ECP for failing to fulfil its “role as a guarantor institution and impartial steward” of electoral processes.
On September 14, 2024 — the day the government was supposed to lay the 26th Amendment in both Houses of the parliament but could not — the Supreme Court, through a clarification, had reprimanded the ECP for not implementing its July 12 ruling in the reserved seats case.
Later on October 18, in yet another clarification, Justice Shah reiterated that the effect of an amendment made in the Elections Act 2017 in August last year could not undo the reserved seats case verdict.
The bill, titled “Elections (Second Amendment) Act, 2024”, was seen as aimed at circumventing the apex court’s verdict on the reserved seats case by barring independent lawmakers from joining a political party after a stipulated period.
A six-judge CB of the apex court was set to take up the PTI’s petition challenging those tweaks to the election laws in December 2024. A separate plea of the PTI against the Jan 13, 2024 ruling denying it its election symbol is also pending before the SC.
More to follow
