ISLAMABAD: Strange logic and reasoning has been offered by a set of constitutional experts that disqualification entails life ban when no specific length of time has been specified in the Constitution for ineligibility of a member of the National Assembly under Article 62(1)(f) for not being honest.
Former Federal Law Minister Farooq Naek has told a TV channel that when no length of time has been spelled out in the Constitution in regard to this kind of disqualification, the presumption is that it will remain for life to contest a public office. This means that the edifice of the entire legal and constitutional opinion has been built on assumptions and presumptions, which is obviously meant to target Nawaz Sharif with clear motives.
When the Constitution is silent on the period for which a person declared disqualified will remain ineligible to vie for an elected office, the concerned person, in the opinion of these legal czars, is to be hit. It seems to be a bizarre argument.
The common sense says that the benefit of such silence or omission or lapse, deliberate or unintentional on the part of the lawmakers, should go to the person struck by the constitutional clause.
It is time the Supreme Court authoritatively interpret this point when a petition is already pending before a larger bench for adjudication despite the fact that some years back the apex court had held that Article 62(1)(f) envisages lifelong ban on a person to contest a public office.
As far as the scope of review of a decision is concerned, it has a very limited scope because the new petition is to be heard by the same bench that handed down the original verdict. The practice is that only errors of technical nature are rectified in the review while the fundamental decisions aren’t altered.
However, there are some instances when the larger benches of the Supreme Court had changed the basic decisions in the review petitions. One relates to the undoing of the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif on their return to Pakistan from exile,which had been caused by their conviction in the plane hijacking and helicopter cases. The other pertains to the dispensing with the penalty imposed on Barrister Ali Zafar while the third case concerns the ban on hunting of houbara bustards in Pakistan by foreign dignitaries.
Article 45, which says the president shall have power to grant pardon, reprieve and respite, and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority, also becomes redundant in the case of Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification as the head of state can’t cancel out the ineligibility imposed by the top court under Article 62(1)(f).
Article 62(1)(f) says a person shall not be qualified to be elected or chosen as a member of Parliament unless he is sagacious, righteous, non-profligate, honest and Ameen, there being no declaration to the contrary by a court of law. There is no mention of the length of time of disqualification of a person under this provision.
This set of experts refers to the periods laid down in Article 63 for various kinds of disqualifications. The article specifies different periods of ineligibility for different reasons at four places. It says a person shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of Parliament if he has been convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction for propagating any opinion, or acting in any manner, prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan, or the sovereignty, integrity, or security of Pakistan, or the integrity or independence of the judiciary of Pakistan, or which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary or the armed forces of Pakistan, unless a period of five years has lapsed since his release, or he has been on conviction for any offence involving moral turpitude, sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than two years, unless a period of five years has elapsed since his release, or he has been dismissed from the service of Pakistan or service of a corporation or office set up or controlled by the federal government, provincial government or a local government on the grounds of misconduct, unless a period of five years has elapsed since his dismissal, or he has been removed or compulsorily retired from the service of Pakistan or service of a corporation or office set up or controlled by the federal government, provincial government or a local government on the ground of misconduct, unless a period of three years has elapsed since his removal or compulsory retirement, or he has been in the service of Pakistan or of any statutory body or any body which is owned or controlled by the government or in which the government has a controlling share or interest, unless a period of two years has elapsed since he ceased to be in such service.