ISLAMABAD: Senior lawyer Abid Hassan Minto on Thursday highlighted before Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial that the president, it appeared, had moved the reference before the Supreme Court on advice and in aid of the political government.

In a letter sent to the CJP, Mr Minto said that in the present reference before the Supreme Court, the president was not merely seeking an advice, he was actually actively canvassing for the lifetime disqualification for defectors by giving an anticipatory opinion or ruling on the matter.

In the letter, the senior lawyer also said that making a reference to the Supreme Court was something the president did on his own, in his discretion, and not on the advice of the prime minister or the cabinet, since the president, as the head of the state, was assumed to be a neutral person.

The letter stated that a general discourse was being built around Article 63-A, positing it as a provision encapsulating some kind of “morality”. It is obvious by now, from the Attorney General of Pakistan’s (AGP) submissions and from the tone of the presidential reference that the Supreme Court was being called upon to advise that voting in contravention of Article 63-A should — at least in some instances — attract lifelong disqualification under Article 62(1f).

The letter requested the CJP to place it before the five-judge larger bench to consider that under Article 63-A, it was not mandatory for a party head to initiate proceedings against those who have defected in terms of that article.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2022