Courting a clash

As expected, the PTI has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the amendments to the Election Act 2017, which were passed by both the National Assembly and the Senate on Tuesday. The plea filed under Article 184(3) of the constitution by PTI Chairman Gohar Khan urges the apex court to declare the Elections (Second Amendment) Bill 2024 “null and void”. Tabled by PML-N lawmaker Bilal Azhar Kiyani last month, the bill is meant to prevent PTI-backed MNAs from joining their party and deprive the PTI of reserved seats. Critics have said the law is aimed at “circumventing” the apex court’s July 12 ruling on the reserved seats issue. The SC verdict had given reserved seats to the PTI in the national and provincial assemblies as per the number of seats the party won. If the SC verdict is implemented, the PTI will become the single largest party in the National Assembly. This is why the legislation is widely seen as a move to thwart the SC verdict on reserved seats.

There are different opinions on whether or not this amendment can supersede the SC verdict. One set of legal observers say parliament is supreme, and its job is to legislate, which is only parliament’s domain and no other institution’s. They say that by declaring the PTI a political party and saying that the 39 candidates whose affiliation was with the PTI will remain the PTI’s successful candidates while the remaining 41 candidates can also submit their affidavits within 15 days that they were candidates of the same party, the SC verdict has led to a lot of confusion because the PTI was not a party to this case. The other side on the legal aisle argues that this part relates to what happened in the elections due to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s wrong interpretation of the bat symbol verdict as well as the wave of fear and harassment the PTI faced before the elections. Since this was under peculiar circumstances, the SC tried to address and resolve that issue. There is also an opinion that the amendments to the Election Act 2017 will not affect the SC verdict and once the July 12 detailed judgment is out, it will be clear for all to see.

However, there is another point of view here that says that because the bill has been passed before the detailed July 12 judgment is out and before the review petitions challenging the SC verdict will be heard, the government will be able to circumvent the ruling without any problems. Interestingly, the ECP has also filed a review petition against the SC verdict on reserved seats and has argued that the decision “unfairly” favoured the PTI, allowing the party to gain reserved seats without meeting the necessary constitutional requirements, and discriminates against other political parties. This argument asks how the SC could not hear those who got these reserved seats and give a verdict without letting the other side plead their case. Reports indicate that the government will table a constitutional amendment in parliament – Senate and National Assembly – within the next few days. The government is slightly short of the required numbers in the Senate so it will be interesting to see how this will be managed. But the most pressing issue is that by not implementing the SC verdict and bringing in a constitutional amendment, is the ‘clash of institutions’ going to just get uglier? And how will an already flailing country handle that? A constitutional breakdown seems imminent if everyone doesn’t take a step back.