Imran Khan moves SC to impose lifetime ban on defecting lawmakers.

 

Imran Khan moves SC to impose lifetime ban on defecting lawmakers

Imran Khan, the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), petitioned the Supreme Court on Thursday, demanding a lifetime ban from winning elections for defecting MPs.

The petition names the Election Commission of Pakistan, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Federation of Pakistan through the secretary cabinet division, and the Secretary of the Ministry of Law and Justice as respondents, according to a copy obtained by Dawn.com.

It was filed at the Supreme Court by PTI lawyer Babar Awan earlier today, and it asks for the formation of a full court made up of all Supreme Court judges to "hear and answer this intricate subject of constitutional interpretation of Article 63-A."

"As stipulated in the third schedule of the Constitution, all members of the National or Provincial Assembly take an oath at the very first session of the house," he noted. "Because members' oaths plainly indicate that they shall uphold the Constitution, a member who deviates from party doctrine is actually defecting from the Constitution and violating his oath to office."

The petition said that under a parliamentary democracy, a seat in the National or Provincial Assembly was equivalent to the political party's trust in the member who brought him or her to the house.

"It can be said that any act of defection or floor crossing would amount to breach of trust imposed upon the member by the political party in circumstances where a bar has been imposed, for example in a matter of vote or no confidence against the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister, and in that case a defecting member cannot at all claim himself to be Sadiq or Amin as stated in Article 63(1)(d) of the Constitution," the petition said.

According to Khan, floor crossing has a moral connotation and hence erodes the nation's faith in the state's legislative organ and its members.

He went on to say that it further usurps the people's mandate, humiliates the system in front of the international community, and sabotages national security by allowing foreign enemies to use lawmakers as a "weapon to remove a democratically elected administration."

As a result, the PTI chairman claimed that a defector parliamentarian cannot "claim a vested right to have his vote counted and given equal weightage," and demanded that contaminated ballots be removed from the vote tally.

He urged the Supreme Court to rule that instead of committing defection as provided in Article 63-A of the Constitution, a member must first resign from his current seat in the legislature.

 According to the petition, the "true spirit of the Constitution inserting anti-defection provision" was to treat defecting members' votes as "challenged or disputed votes" "liable to be excluded from final counts until the issue of voting member defection in the manner provided in Article 63-A of the Constitution is resolved."

It further stated that the court had noticed in numerous cases that defection or floor crossing was nothing short of cancer and undermined the spirit of democratic governance, and asked the court to rule that "any kind of defection would equal to imposing a lifetime ban on winning elections."

Dissident MNAs

The appeal also noted "recent floor crossing and defection of PTI MNAs during the no-confidence motion against the former Prime Minister."

"Some of the defecting members have publicly admitted to defection in their interviews with the media in a daring manner, feeling pride in their act and further committed to stay engaged in this immoral trade while gaining colossal sums in cash and kind without any risk of losing their membership of Parliament for life," it said.

The petitioner went on to say that footage broadcast by the media were not rejected, nor were rebuttals provided by the members in question, and that this had severely harmed the public's faith in the system.

Several PTI MPs who had been 'in hiding' at the Sindh House in Islamabad before the no-trust resolution against Imran Khan were uncovered, proving accurate the opposition's claims of having "won over" members of the ruling coalition.

Several TV channels that dispatched crews into Sindh House to check the accusations were met with over a dozen PTI members who stated they had grown dissatisfied with the Imran Khan-led administration and would vote "according to their conscience."

Presidential reference on Article 63-A

The Imran-led government had filed a presidential reference for the interpretation of Article 63-A before being deposed, inquiring about the "legal status of party members' votes when they are clearly involved in horse-trading and change their loyalties in exchange for money," according to the Supreme Court.

The presidential referral was submitted under Article 186, which pertains to the Supreme Court's advisory jurisdiction.

President Dr. Arif Alvi also asked the Supreme Court whether a member who "engages in a constitutionally prohibited and morally reprehensible act of defection" could claim the right to have his vote counted and given equal weight, or if there was a constitutional restriction preventing such "tainted" votes from being counted and given equal weight.

He also urged the court to clarify if a legislator who had been found guilty of defection would be barred from serving for the rest of his life. It warned that "a truly democratic polity shall eternally remain an unfulfilled distant dream and desire" unless horse-trading is abolished.

"Because of the ambiguous interpretation of Article 63-A, which allows for no long-term disqualification, such members enrich themselves first, then return to be available to the highest bidder in the next round, perpetuating this malignancy."