ISLAMABAD: In an eff­ort to mount a worthwhile legal challenge against the rejection of seven vital votes polled during the election to the office of Senate chairman on Friday, the Pakistan Peoples Party has put together a formidable team comprising three former Senate chairmen and a former governor of Punjab that would likely file a petition on the matter before a high court next week, it emerged on Saturday.

According to sources, the PPP’s legal team consisting of Farooq H. Naek, Syed Nayyar Bukhari, Raza Rabbani and Latif Khan Khosa has its work cut out because the Constitution provides immunity to parliamentary proceedings.

Clause 1 of Article 69 of the Constitution says: “The validity of any proceedings in Parliament shall not be called in question on the ground of any irregularity of procedure.” And Clause 2 of the article reads: “No officer or Member of Parlia­ment, in whom powers are vested by or under the Con­stitution for regulating the procedure or the Conduct of Business, or for maintaining order in the Parliament, shall be subject to the jurisdiction of any court in respect of the exercise by him of those powers.”

A petition will likely be filed in the Islamabad High Court next week

When Dawn contacted him for comments on the matter, Senator Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who was the presiding officer for the election of chairman of Senate held on Friday, said the opposition parties could not challenge what had happened during parliamentary proceedings.

He said that Rule 264 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate empowered the chairman, deputy chairman or the secretary of Senate to give a ruling in matters where the law was silent.

“Being the presiding officer, I was exercising the powers of the chairman (of) Senate and I gave the ruling for rejection of seven votes,” he said.

He was of the opinion that although the rejection of votes could not be challenged for being part of parliamentary proceedings, the opposition could file a petition before the election tribunal.

However, when this reporter pointed out that election to the post of Senate chairman was not held under the Elections Act, which provided such a remedy, Senator Shah said the aggrieved party could then invoke Article 199 of the Constitution to file a petition before a high court.

Article 199 of the Constitution confers wide powers of judicial review on high courts of the country. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Pakistan under Article 184(3) of the Constitution is empowered to enforce complete justice.

According to the sources, the PPP’s legal team of Mr Naek, Mr Bukhari, Mr Rabbani and Mr Khosa has been deliberating long and hard over the law points that are likely to come up during a possible debate on maintainability of the petition that will likely be filed before the Islamabad High Court next week.

The sources said the members of the team have been concentrating on three aspects of the case in order to make it a case of enforcement of fundamental rights.

They are of the view that it’s a case of disenfranchisement of voters.

The team thinks that the intention of voters should be considered in the light of over a dozen superior court judgements in which the judges validated votes that had been declared invalid.

The team has so far also decided that a petition be filed against the ruling of the presiding officer under which the key seven votes were rejected.

Because there’s no other remedy available, the petition would likely be filed before the IHC, the sources said.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2021