LAHORE: The federal government told the Lahore High Court on Wednesday that the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 was a valid piece of law and in conformity with the Constitution.

Deputy Attorney General Imran Aziz stated this before a full bench during hearing of petitions challenging the existence of the NAB Ordinance 1999 and conviction of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members under the same law.

Opposing the maintainability of the petitions, the federal law officer argued that the Supreme Court had already settled this issue in a case famously known as “Khan Asfandyar Wali & others versus Federation” in 2001.

He said the NAB ordinance could not be struck down in the presence of the Supreme Court’s judgment. He urged the bench to dismiss the petitions for not being maintainable.

NAB Additional Prosecutor General Jahanzeb Bharwana would start his arguments on Thursday (today). The bench headed by Justice Shahid Waheed had decided to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis. Justice Atir Mahmood and Justice Shahid Jamil Khan are other members of the full bench.

Senior lawyer A.K. Dogar of the Pakistan Lawyers Foundation and others had filed the petitions assailing the conviction of the Sharif family besides challenging the existence of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999.

The petitioners stated that the ordinance had been promulgated by military dictator retired Gen Pervez Musharraf under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) No 1 of 1999 as well as Order No 9 of 1999. They said the order No 9 was promulgated only to amend PCO No 1 of 1999 by inserting Section 5A (1) into it to the effect that limitation of 120 days prescribed under Article 89 of the Constitution to any ordinance by the president would not be applicable to the laws made under PCO No 1 of 1999.

However, the petitioners said under Article 270-AA of the Constitution through the 18th amendment, the PCO No 1 of 1999 was declared without lawful authority and of no legal effect. They said once the PCO No 1 was declared without lawful authority and of no legal effect, the amendments to it made under order No 9 of 1999 would also stand lapsed and, therefore, the limitation period of 120 days prescribed under Article 89 would be applicable to the NAB ordinance.

The petitioners asked the court to declare that after the 18th amendment and insertion of Article 270-AA into the Constitution, the NAB ordinance had ceased to be the law and become non-existent and a dead letter.

They said thousands of people had been suffering from the agony of proceedings under a law which was constitutionally non-existent. Therefore all these proceedings should also be declared unlawful.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2018