LG law case sent to LHC CJ for larger bench

LAHORE: Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh of the Lahore High Court Thursday referred the petitions challenging new Punjab Local Government Act 2019 to chief justice for formation of a larger bench to hear the matter.

Hearing several petitions against new LG law, Justice Sheikh issued notices to Attorney General of Pakistan and Advocate General Punjab seeking their assistance on the legal points raised in the petitions.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and others had challenged the Punjab Local Government Act-2019 (PLGA) which dissolved local governments in the province elected under the 2013 legislation.

The petitioners’ counsel contended that “Section 30 of PLGA 2013 explicitly promises a five-year term to all offices of local government and all the office holders have legitimate expectations to be allowed to complete their constitutional term.” The petitioner said Section 3 of the PLGA 2019 purported to dissolve all existing local governments; however, it did not constitute new governments nor it provided a definite timeline on which election for setting up new local governments would be held.

Instead, it envisages an indefinite period of hiatus between dissolution of existing local governments and setting up new regime, he added.

He submitted that the government intended to appoint bureaucrats as administrators to fill the vacuum created after dissolution of elected representatives. The petitioner pleaded that after Article 140-A of the Constitution the local bodies had been elevated to the status of government. He argued that like the federal government could not be allowed to summarily dissolve the provincial governments and a provincial government could not be allowed to summarily dissolve local government.

“Any law or executive order which purports to dissolve a sitting local government is violative of letter and spirit of Article 140-A of the Constitution,” stated the petitioner. He admitted that the provincial government had the power to amend the local government system through legislation; however, the amendment powers could only be exercised for the objectives stated in Articles 32 and 140-A of the Constitution i.e. strengthening the local government system.

He argued that this objective could not be possibly achieved by repeatedly de-seating sitting elected local governments. A new local government system can only be introduced through legislation once sitting local governments have completed their legal-cum-constitutional term in office, he pleaded.

He asked the court to declare that the petitioner and all others elected to office under PLGA-2013 were entitled to complete their constitutional term and suspend operation of the PLGA-2019 until completion of the term of the recently dissolved setup.

He pointed out that the Punjab Assembly passed the Punjab Local Government Bill, 2019 in hasty and arbitrary manner as no parliamentary debate was held on the bill. He said around 60,000 elected representatives across Punjab had been sent packing. After hearing the initial arguments, Justice Sheikh sent the petitions to chief justice for constitution of a larger bench to adjudicate upon the issue.