A file photo of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has clubbed all petitions seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and lawmakers from his family, and fixed them for preliminary hearing on August 3.
The country’s top electoral body on Friday sent notices to petitioners to argue the maintainability of the petitions filed by different opposition parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Tahirul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek and Sheikh Rashid’s Awami Muslim League also submitted petitions separately.
PTI joins PPP in seeking PM’s disqualification through ECP
The petitions had been left pending without any action as they were filed after June 12, when the four provincial ECP members retired. The commission became functional again this week after the government appointed new ECP members.
Decision on maintainability will set the tone for opposition parties which have high hopes from the newly constituted commission. These parties term it a ‘test case’ for the new commission, though many legal experts dispute the choice of forum by these parties. They claim ECP is not the proper forum in such cases.
The petitioners have based their petitions on the Panama Leaks revelations. They contend that the prime minister and his family had assets abroad but they never disclosed them in the annual statements every lawmaker submits to ECP.
ECP unlikely to decide PM disqualification pleas
Apart from Prime Minister Nawaz, the petitioners have questioned the eligibility of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shahbaz, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and the premier’s son-in-law Captain (Retd) Muhammad Safdar.
A separate case against Prime Minister’s son in law is already being heard by ECP. Before these petitions were moved by political parties, Safdar’s opponent from Manshera had submitted a petition stating that he had not mentioned assets of his wife Maryum which have been disclosed in Panama Leaks.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 30th, 2016.
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