KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday dismissed a petition seeking a directive for the federal government to share the final draft of the proposed constitutional amendment bill with the public for debate.

A two-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui, dismissed the petition as the petitioners failed to articulate any article that would compel the cabinet to share the proposed draft with bar councils and bar associations.

“We are afraid that the representatives of the public are sitting in the National Assembly/ Senate with their voices. We have not been able to articulate the proposition of the petitioners that the proposed amendments be made available to the public as we do not find any article in support thereof. The legislative procedure is provided in Articles 70 to 77 and the submissions are devoid of such frame,” the court observed.

“The courts have been restrained from interfering in such matters and in particular in respect of the issue of legislation (competence of which otherwise is not denied), unless it is seen to be demonstrably unconstitutional. Since it has not yet been surfaced as an Act of the Parliament, the process of adjudging it either constitutional or unconstitutional cannot be triggered,” it further added.

Referring to the observation of the Supreme Court in its judgement in the Practice and Procedure Act, 2023, the court noted that the counsel had “miserably failed” to bring the “recent judgment that was in respect of Practice and Procedure Act, 2023 wherein a question to challenge the proposed legislation was taken up”.

In the said judgement, the SC had observed that the “…interventions should be restricted to only when parliament enacts legislation which is demonstrably unconstitutional.”

Earlier, Advocate Muhammad Ghulam Rehman Korai and Chand Kumar had filed a petition through their counsel Ebrahim Saifuddin and Tahir Mehmood before the SHC, seeking direction for the respondents — the federal government and ministry of law and justice — to make the final draft of the proposed amendment public and grant a period of at least 60 days for all stakeholders to discuss and deliberate it.

The petitioners also asked the court to restrain the respondents from introducing the proposed amendment in parliament until it was made public.

The counsel argued that the current parliament lacked “legitimacy” to pass the constitutional amendment as several election disputes were still pending before the election tribunals.

They also submitted that the proposed amendments were aimed at changing the entire basic structure and the silent feature of the Constitution and contended that it could be allowed without taking onboard “stakeholders, including legal fraternity and civil society”.

They claimed that the alleged amendment draft was essentially another form of a Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), which would suspend the Constitution, introduce draconian laws, and establish an Orwellian state. They argued that it should be set aside if passed by the parliament without taking all stakeholders on board.

Meanwhile, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said that the SHC verdict came as a shock for “the so-called lawyers” who had filed identical petitions before different courts.

In a post on social media, he said that no one should take into consideration the opinion of such lawyers on judicial reforms.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2024