ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) is preparing a petition to challenge the lifelong disqualification of a public office holder under Article 62-1(f).
Article 62-1(f) — which sets the precondition for a member of parliament to be honest and righteous — is the same provision under which deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2017 in the Panama Papers case.
Former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) secretary general Jahangir Tareen was also disqualified later that year by a separate bench of the top court under the same provision.
The lawyers’ body is expected to challenge the disqualification of a parliament hopeful and has drafted a petition in this regard. It will submit the petition to the Supreme Court later this week.
The petition reportedly requests the disqualification period of a candidate should be restricted to five years.
In 2018, a five-judge Supreme Court bench unanimously held that disqualification handed down under Article 62-1(f) of the Constitution is for life.
“The restriction imposed by Article 62-1(f) of the Constitution for the eligibility of a candidate for election to Parliament serves the public need and public interest for honest, upright, truthful, trustworthy and prudent elected representatives,” read the judgement.
However, the SCBA petition notes that imposing a lifelong ban on a candidate is a violation of their basic rights, adding that in the suo motu notices and other special prerogatives granted to the court, a petitioner must be accorded the right to appeal.
It points that the apex court has already declared in the local government elections case that the elected representatives could not be kept aloof from people.
It’s against the very fundamentals of Islam to not pardon those who contemplate and seek forgiveness for their mistakes, it says, citing cases of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the incumbent Imran Khan.
“The Constitution is based on fundamental rights,” it says.
The body has made the federal government party to the case.
