LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah on Friday said that it was written nowhere in the constitution or election laws that a defaulter or disqualified person could not form a political party.
The chief justice remarked that article 17 of the constitution gave right to every citizen to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by the law in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan.
The chief justice was hearing a number of petitions challenging newly introduced amendments to the election law through ‘The Election Act 2017′.
Ishitaq Ahmad Chaudhry of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and others had filed petitions requesting the court to strike down sections 203 & 232 of the act as repugnant to the constitution and also restrain the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from issuing a notification declaring former prime minister Nawaz Sharif head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) after his disqualification by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case.
He pleaded that the “impugned” amendments were based on mala fide intensions and to benefit a disqualified person. He insisted that the court had the powers to put the amendments on judicial review and strike down the same.
The chief justice observed that voters have had the right to elect whether a defaulter or a disqualified person and voters’ verdict was always supreme in any democratic system.
He observed that the constitution of Pakistan empowered its citizens to vote for a person of their own choice whether a defaulter or a disqualified one.