Senate”.”
Amendment of Article 226 of the Constitution: In the Constitution, in Article 226, after the word “of” the word and comma “Senate,” shall be inserted.
General. The provisions of the Constitution (Twenty-Second Amendment) Act, 2015 shall be without prejudice to the process of Senate Elections already issued.
In clause (1)(a) of article 59, the amendment replaces only one word ‘elected’ with ‘chosen’. The substitution implies that since a lawmaker has to be ‘elected’ through secret ballot as required by the present constitutional scheme, which this amendment dispenses with in the case of the Senate elections, the secret ballot doesn’t apply to the one ‘chosen’.
The alteration in article 63A adds eighth ground (voting in the Senate against party direction) for committing the offence of floor crossing, leading to ouster from the legislature.
If the proposed amendment in article 63A is carried, anybody defecting in the Senate elections will face the procedure for his unseating spelt out in this provision.
It says if a member of a parliamentary party composed of a single political party in the National Assembly, the Senate or a provincial assembly resigns from membership of his political party or joins another one; or votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the parliamentary party to which he belongs, in relation to election of the prime minister or the chief minister; or a vote of confidence or a vote of no-confidence; or a Money Bill or a constitutional amendment bill, he may be declared in writing by the Party Head to have defected from the political party, and the party head may forward a copy of the declaration to the Presiding Officer (Speaker or Chairman) and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) will similarly forward a copy to the member concerned provided that before making the declaration, the party head will provide such lawmaker with an opportunity to show cause as to why such declaration may not be made against him. The party head means any person by whatever name called declared as such by the party.
A legislator will be deemed to be a member of a parliamentary party if he, having been elected as a candidate or nominee of a political party which constitutes the parliamentary party in the House or, having been elected otherwise than as a candidate or nominee of a political party, has become a member of such parliamentary party after such election by means of a declaration in writing.
Upon receipt of the declaration, the Presiding Officer will within two days refer, and in case he fails to do so it will be deemed that he has referred, the declaration to the CEC who will lay the declaration before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for its decision thereon confirming the declaration or otherwise within thirty days of its receipt by the CEC.
Where the ECP confirms the declaration, the concerned member will cease to be a lawmaker and his seat will become vacant. Any party aggrieved by the ECP decision may, within thirty days, prefer an appeal to the Supreme Court which will decide the matter within ninety days from the date of the filing of the appeal.