Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the Elections Act (Second Amendment) Bill 2024 on Wednesday.
According to the 24NewsHD TV channel, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, representing PTI, has requested the SC declare the Election Amendment Act null and void, terming it unconstitutional and illegal.
In his petition, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan urged the court to immediately stop the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from allocating reserved seats to other political parties and to direct the allocation of reserved seats for women and non-Muslims to the PTI.
He argued that PTI had already submitted its list of reserved seats to the Election Commission and that, following the decision on July 12, PTI has the rightful claim to these seats.
Barrister Gohar made the federal government and the ECP parties in his constitutional petition.
The National Assembly passed the Election Act (Second Amendment) Bill 2024 by a majority vote. All the amendments proposed by the opposition were rejected.
The National Assembly voted in favour of the bill proposing amendments to the Elections Act 2017 to refrain lawmakers from changing their party affiliation amid pandemonium by members of the opposition who labelled the legislation "unconstitutional."
Text of the Bill:
The text of the bill reads: “Provided that if a candidate, before seeking allotment of a prescribed symbol, has not filed a declaration before the returning officer about his affiliation with a particular political party by submitting a party certificate from the political party confirming that he is that party’s candidate, he shall be deemed to be considered as an independent candidate and not a candidate of any political party.”
According to the Statement of the Objects and Reasons: Articles 51 and 106 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan provide for the allocation of seats to the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies respectively along with mechanism for the elections thereto and include that the independent returned candidate or candidates may duly join a political party within three days of the publication in the official Gazette of the names of the returned candidates.
The Elections Act, 2017 and the rules made thereunder also provide for the right to independent returned candidate or candidates to duly join a political party at his consent.
Neither the Constitution nor the Elections Act, 2017 provide for joining a political party by an independent returned candidate or candidates at a subsequent stage when they have already exercised the option to join the political party at a point of time as specified in the Constitution.
To provide clarity in the law in the true spirit of the Constitution this Bill has been designed to expressly provide for that no independent candidate or candidates shall exercise his/their right to join a political party at a subsequent stage after the period specified for the purpose in the Constitution and the law.
Reporter: Amanat Gishkori