The ruling parties \u2014 Pakistan Mulsim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) \u2014 Saturday demanded the formation of Supreme Court’s full court bench to hear the suo motu notice taken over the apparent delay in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa general elections.
\nThe plea \u2014 moved through Farooq H Naek, Kamran Murtaza, and Masoor Usman Awan \u2014 also sought the exclusion of Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi.
\nThe development comes a few days after Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial took a suo motu notice of an apparent delay in the elections of the assemblies, which dissolved in Punjab and KP on January 14 and 18, respectively, and also formed a larger bench to hear the case.
\nThe bench began hearing the case on Thursday afternoon. According to the chief justice\u2019s statement, the bench is to assess who is eligible to issue the date for polls, the constitutional responsibility of the federation and provinces, and who will fulfil the constitutional responsibility of conducting elections and when.
\nMeanwhile, the ruling coalition \u2014 including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif \u2014 has shared their reservations regarding the two judges in the bench. In a meeting presided by PM Shehbaz, the PML-N noted that it does not expect justice from the two SC judges and that they should recuse themselves from the benches hearing their cases.
\nThe petition \u2014 submitted today \u2014 mentioned the violation of Article 10A right of the parties involved, while also noting that Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail stated that referring the matter to the chief justice for taking suo motu under Article 184(3) was inappropriate, who deemed the action \u201cnot justified\u201d.
\nThe top court\u2019s judge also raised significant constitutional questions about the way the suo motu powers are to be exercised under the aforementioned article, the petition mentioned.
\nThe petition stated that relevant stakeholders, who received notices from the top court, appeared before the court a day earlier through their counsels and requested the \u201crecusal\u201d of Justice Naqvi and Justice Ahsan via a joint statement from \u201chearing any matter involving PML (N), PPPP and JUI (Pakistan) and their leadership and in-specific SMC No. 1 of 2023 and CPs No.1 of 2023 and 2 of 2023.\u201d
\nIt added that the circumstances \u2014 as recorded in the chief justice\u2019s note \u2014 have raised several questions of immense legal, constitutional and public importance.
\nTherefore, the parties have requested a reconstitution of the bench to hear the titled petitions and have mentioned doing so in the best interest of justice and fairness, and to strengthen the public confidence in the country\u2019s Supreme Court.
\nBars demand full court bench
\nMeanwhile, the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council (KPBC) have demanded the formation of a full-court bench for hearing the issue regarding polls.
\nThey have also expressed concerns over the exclusion of Senior Puisne Judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa and senior judge, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, from the nine-member bench.
\n\u201cThis association believes that power of roaster fixation and case should not be rested exclusively with the Chief Justice of Pakistan,\u201d a statement issued by SHCBA read.
\nBoth the bar association and bar council have asked Justice Naqvi and Justice Ahsan to recuse themselves from the bench.
\n\u201cThey should not remain part of the bench for hearing of this important matter,\u201d the Sindh bar\u2019s statement said, while KPBC stated that \u201cserious objections were raised against them from different quarters including the observations made by some of the sitting SC judges\u201d.
\nThe SHBCA also called upon the country\u2019s top judge to \u201ctake appropriate steps so that the adverse impression especially in political cases may be redressed\u201d.
\nOn the other hand, the KPBC said that the Supreme Court was giving \u201cprotection to undemocratic forces\u201d and even gave the \u201cmartial law regime\u201d the right to make amendments to the Constitution.
\n\u201cThat regarding important constitutional cases, the constitution of particular benches for particular cases be avoided to restore the trust and confidence of masses on the courts,\u201d the KP bar council\u2019s statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ruling parties \u2014 Pakistan Mulsim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) \u2014 Saturday demanded the formation of Supreme Court’s full…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5021,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}