Attorney General asks CEC to follow constitution in dual-nationality case

In what appeared to be a surprising move by Attorney General Irfan Qadir against the decision of Election Commission of  Pakistan (ECP) to de-notify 11 parliamentarians holding dual nationalities, he stressed the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to follow the Constitution rather verdict of the apex court.

The attorney general wrote a letter to CEC Justice (Retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, arguing that the apex court had no authority to issue directives to election commission.

It is vital to mention here that the Supreme Court has recently detached him from Malik Riaz’s contempt of court over his biased behavior.

Irfan Qadir asked the ECP to move on in the case in accordance with the relevant provision of the 1973 Constitution.

The Supreme Court in its verdict on September 20 directed the election commission to de-notify 11 parliamentarians who had submitted false declarations while submitting their nomination papers, hiding their foreign nationalities.

The attorney general noted, “In my view, the Election Commission of Pakistan has the exclusive obligation to determine the questions of disqualification as per the relevant constitutional provisions and as such the ECP is not to perform its functions on the directions of any court in Pakistan including the Supreme Court.”

Drawing the CEC’s attention to the decision of the election commission, he asked Fakhruddin to take steps in accordance with Article 5 of the Constitution, which is about protecting and preserving the Constitution.

However, the CEC according to the media reports defended his decision of disqualifying the dual-nationality holder parliamentarians.

In response to the AG’s letter, he said, “Being a retired judge of the Supreme Court I am well aware of the relevant provisions of the Constitution.”

The ECP in the light of the directives of the apex court ordered to the Sessions judges concerned to initiate criminal proceedings against 11 de-notified legislators, including Interior Minister Rehman Malik, for filing false declarations at the time of submitting nomination papers.

Under Section 63(1) of the Constitution, a dual nationality holder cannot become a member of the National Assembly, provincial assembly or the Senate.

The ECP has now decided to take fresh oath from all parliamentarians to ascertain their nationalities, and it is expected that more cases of dual nationality holders would surfaced following this move.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Sep 26 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.