PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Friday directed the Election Commission of Pakistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s speaker to respond to a petition filed by Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarians MPAs, elected on the seats reserved for women, for the calling of the assembly session for their swearing-in.

A bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah issued the order after a preliminary hearing into the petition of Shazia Tehmas, Mehr Sultana, Farzana Shireen, Ashbar Jan Jadoon, and Naima Kanwal against the speaker’s failure to convene the assembly session for their oath-taking.

It fixed March 26 for the next hearing, asking the respondents, including ECP and the Assembly’s speaker and its secretary, to submit their respective responses to the petition.

The petition was filed after the KP governor summoned the assembly’s session for March 22 but the assembly’s secretariat declined to hold the sitting and sought the opinion of the law department about the governor’s move.

Lawyer Saqib Raza appeared for the petitioners and contended that the ECP had issued a notification on March 4 wherein it had notified 20 MPAs-elect on the basis of proportional representation of seats won by different political parties.

He said that the present petitioners were also notified as MPAs-elect in the said notification.

The lawyer argued that under the Constitution, the speaker of the assembly should have convened a session of the assembly for the oath-taking of the notified MPAs-elect. He, however, said the session was not convened, after which the KP governor had issued an order under Article 109 of the Constitution for the convening of the session on March 22.

Mr Raza pointed out that the Senate elections to fill 11 seats were scheduled to be held on April 2. He added that every vote was crucial for that electoral exercise.

The lawyer argued that the government in the province had conspired “not to allow the oath taking of those MPAs-elect to stop them from voting in the Senate polls, and for that purpose, the assembly’s secretariat wasn’t convening the session on political grounds.”

When the bench asked the lawyer whether the session convened by the governor was going to be held today (Friday), he replied that the assembly’s secretariat declared in a news release that sitting wouldn’t take place.

The court also wondered why the decision about the allocation of the provincial assembly’s reserved seats to political parties was recently taken by a larger bench of the high court and why those MPAs-elect weren’t allowed to take oaths.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2024