ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan has claimed that amendments made to the rules for presidential elections by the Chief Election Commissioner are not open to judicial scrutiny.
According to him, the decision to amend the presidential election rules, 1998, was in line with apex court judgments holding that disqualification under Article 63 of the Constitution did not apply to presidential elections.
Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, he said that the amendment to section 5(3) (a) of the rules was in exercise of CEC’s powers under the second schedule of the Constitution which authorised him to make and amend the rules to hold polls in a free and fair manner. He said the amendment had been made to bring the rules in conformity with the Supreme Court judgments.
He said that under the Supreme Court rules, a decision by a bench of the court could be reviewed only by the same bench if it felt there were some anomalies in the verdict. That could be done within 30 days, he said.
On a petition filed by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, he said, an eight-member bench of the court, headed by then Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmed and comprising Justice Munir A. Sheikh, present Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, present Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq, Justice Mian Ajmal, Justice Deedar Hussain Shah, Justice Hamid Ali Mirza, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Nawaz Abbasi, had held on April 27, 2002, that disqualification clauses under Article 63 were not applicable to the president’s election.
He claimed that decisions in various other cases supported that verdict. He cited the cases of Aftab Shabaan Mirani versus President of Pakistan, 1998, Mohammad Rafiq Tarar versus Justice Mukhtar Ahmad Junejo and Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif versus Altaf Hussain.
He said that on a petition filed by the Pakistan Lawyers Forum, the Supreme Court had held on April 13, 2005, that any clause of Article 63 did not apply to the president because it was a settled law that the president was only required to be qualified to be a member of parliament, as provided by Article 62 of the Constitution.
Dr Afgan said the amendment to the presidential election rules had not been kept as a ‘guarded secret’ and anybody could get its copy by following the required procedure.
He said the meting of the president’s chief of staff with Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had nothing to do with the amendment to the rules and the two had only discussed appointment of judges.
He rejected All Parties Democratic Movement’s criticism of the amendment and said the alliance wanted to derail ‘democracy’.
He also said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf would be re-elected unopposed for another term. He claimed that the Pakistan People’s Party would abstain from voting, but did not say if it would be done under some deal.
According to him, the presidential election had nothing to do with legal or constitutional matters and it was purely a political matter. “The president is elected by votes, not by any law.”
The statutory notification regarding the amendment to the rules was issued on Sept 10 but was made public on Sept 15, and that too not by the Election Commission but by the minister for parliamentary affairs. The notification is to be formally released by the Election Commission on Monday (today).
The Election Commission had put the rules for the presidential elections on its website as a new document, but it was removed by the commission on Sunday evening without specifying any reason.
