ISLAMABAD: Speaker Ayaz Sadiq said on Monday that the National Assembly takes action on court orders after they are notified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

In a statement made during the National Assembly session on Monday, Mr Sadiq told the house that he had recently given an interview to anchorperson Saleem Safi on the show Jirga.

Referring to a report, carried in Dawn on Oct 28, titled ‘Won’t follow court order on reserved seats: NA speaker’, Mr Sadiq claimed his statements from the interview had been “misquoted and misrepresented”.

“I have all the respect for the honourable judges, in fact, we all have respect for honourable judges,” he said, and clarified that “in all issues, the court writes to the ECP, which then notifies, and then it is our responsibility to take action on it”.

“We do not notify and de-notify people on court orders here. When elections are held and the ECP issues a notification, then members are allowed [to sit in the assembly].”

“Then, by-elections are held and after that the members who are notified, they are administered the oath.”

He also recalled the example of a JUI-F member, who had met him several times, insisting that she be allowed to take the oath. “I told her that you should get it [in writing] from the ECP,” he said.

In the interview, which aired on Geo News on Sunday, when asked whether he would only implement the decision of the ECP, Mr Sadiq responded: “Yes, we don’t do it on court orders.”

The interviewer then asked him ‘Isn’t the Supreme Court superior to the ECP?’, to which Mr Sadiq responded: “If we start listening to courts, there are many decisions that come. Until the ECP doesn’t notify it, we do not give our decision on it”.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2024