ISLAMABAD: A lawyer, seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his alleged misstatement of facts on the floor of parliament on Aug 29, moved a fresh application before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking that a larger bench be constituted to hear the matter as soon as possible.

The fresh application was filed by Insaf Lawyers’ Forum Senior Vice President Gohar Nawaz Sindhu, requesting Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk to constitute a larger bench, as suggested by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja.

Hearing an earlier petition on the matter in Quetta on Nov 10, Justice Khawaja had ordered the SC office to place the case file before the chief justice, who, if he considered it appropriate, might constitute a larger bench. Justice Khawaja also suggested that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Vice President Hamid Khan, PPP Senator Raza Rabbani and senior counsel Khawaja Haris be engaged as amici curiae (friends of the court) to assist the court, since important constitutional questions involving the continuity and the health of the country’s system of elections, governance and adherence to the will of the people have arisen.

Before closing the matter, Justice Khawaja had formulated a number of questions for consideration, with a view to laying down a law suggesting what should be the minimum threshold of transgression that must be committed by a member of parliament before Articles 62(1f) and 63(1g) of the Constitution could be invoked against him or her.

SC throws out case against Sharif for storming of Supreme Court in 1997

It is important to determine, the bench had said, which court is competent to convict a parliamentarian and what should be the standard of proof required for making such a conviction.

The court had also suggested that the larger bench consider that the constitutional provisions of eligibility for elected office, requiring elected persons to be “honest” and “trust-worthy” have to be given meaning because these terms constituted a substantive part of the Constitution.

If constituted, the larger bench will also consider whether Article 66 (privileges of members) provides an absolute or a qualified privilege to a parliamentarian for statements made on the floor of the two houses of parliament and provincial assemblies, and also whether the provisions of Articles 62 and 63 override Article 66.

And finally, what is the effect of the material changes which have been made in Articles 62 and 63 by the 18th Amendment passed in April 2010, the judge asked.

The bench had held that it was of the utmost importance that these questions be answered, because challenges to the qualifications or disqualifications, eligibility of elected members and also elections and by-elections were a recurring phenomenon and it is necessary that courts, returning officers and election tribunals receive guidelines.

Supreme Court attack case

Separately, a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by the chief justice, dismissed on Tuesday a set of petitions filed in 1998 by Dr Babar Awan, Manzoor Qadir and Syed Iqbal Haider, seeking disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over the controversial storming of the Supreme Court building in 1997.

When the case was taken up on Tuesday, no one except Dr Babar Awan appeared before the court, which dismissed the case for being infructuous.

Published in Dawn, November 19th , 2014