Islamabad: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday issued second clarification over special seats on the question raised by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) election act amendment applicability from the past.
The SC in its second clarification said that owing to amendment in election act the SC decision doesn’t have retrospective effect while the amendment can’t undo the SC July 12 verdict.
The SC in its clarification said that the ECP and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have filed various petitions for the clarification.
All the judges agreed that the ECP is bound to implement the SC verdict of July 12 this year.
On July 12 this year, a full court bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was a valid political party and allowed the grant of reserved seats for women and minorities proportionate to the general seats the party had secured in the national and provincial assemblies.
The verdict, announced by a majority of 8-5 judges with Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa in the minority, directed the PTI to submit within 15 days a list of candidates who had contested the February 2024 general elections as PTI candidates and for reserved seats.
Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, who as the senior-most judge among the eight judges in majority, read out the short order which set aside the March 24, 2024, decision of the full bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and declared the March 1, 2024, decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan against granting reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council or the PTI as “ultra vires to the Constitution, without lawful authority and of no legal effect.”
The Supreme Court’s short order further noted that a notification issued by the ECP on May 13, 2024, declared returned candidates for reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial authorities ultra vires to the Constitution and of no legal effect.
Critically, the majority order seemed to critique the order of a three-judge bench led by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Qazi Faez Isa, which had declared on January 13 that the PTI could not retain its electoral symbol going into the February 2024 general elections simply because it had failed a key tenet of law where it was required to hold intra-party elections as per the party’s Constitution.
The Supreme Court’s order on Friday noted that the lack of or denial of an election symbol does not in any manner deny the constitutional and legal rights of a political party to participate in an election, whether general or by-elections and feel the candidates and (election) commission are under a constitutional duty to apply all statutory provisions equally.
Reserved Seats: Majority Verdict Suspended Parts Of Constitution To Grant PTI Relief, Say 2 Minority Judges
“PTI was and is a political party,” the court said.
The court further declared that of the 80 candidates claiming to be backed by PTI, only 39 were shown by the commission to have filed their nomination papers as PTI candidates or with PTI’s official ticket. Thus, these 39 seats were and are the returned candidates of PTI and have secured seats for the party.
The court further granted the PTI 15 days to submit requisite notarised documents certifying that the remaining 41 candidates too had contested the general elections on behalf of the PTI. The commission will then seek confirmation from the PTI about these candidates. These seats will be awarded to the PTI in the respective assemblies if confirmed.
The eight judges who held that PTI should be given reserved seats included Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha Malik, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hassan Ali Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan.
The court further ordered that the Sunni Ittehad Council does not fulfill the conditions to be recognised as a political party in assembly and thus cannot be allocated reserved seats for women and minorities. The PTI, however, does fulfill the conditions for a political party and can be allocated reserved seats.
CJP’s minority order
In his minority order, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa held that the SIC did not contest the general elections as a political party.
He further said that the ECP had incorrectly interpreted the January 13 verdict of the Supreme Court regarding the intra-party elections of PTI and declared candidates who had filed nomination papers as PTI candidates with PTI affiliation certificates as independent candidates. “The ECP had no authority to declare validly nominated candidates of a political party to be independent candidates.”
CJP Isa said that candidates who had once declared themselves members of a political party could not declare themselves independent candidates after the last date for withdrawing candidature.
