ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court constituted on Wednesday a seven-judge bench which would resume hearing a set of petitions seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his alleged Aug 29 misstatement of facts on the parliament floor. Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk will head the bench, which will convene from next week.

The larger bench was constituted in line with a Nov 10 order of a three-judge bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja in Quetta, which had asked the court office to place the matter before the chief justice – who might constitute the larger bench if he deemed appropriate.

Later on Nov 18, Insaaf Lawyers’ Forum Senior Vice President Gohar Nawaz Sindhu also moved an application, requesting the Supreme Court to form the larger bench as soon as possible.

The three-judge bench had also suggested the chief justice consider appointing PTI vice president Hamid Khan, PPP Senator Raza Rabbani and senior counsel Khawaja Haris as amicis curaie to assist the court in the matter since important constitutional questions involving the continuity and health of the country’s system of election, governance and adherence to the will of the people had arisen.

In addition to Mr Sindhu, other petitioners who filed similar petitions included PTI central leader Ishaq Khakwani and PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

Before closing the matter, Justice Khawaja had also 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.

It is important to determine, the bench had said, which court was 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 “trustworthy” have to be given meaning because these terms constituted a substantive part of the Constitution.

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.

Published in Dawn, November 27th , 2014