LAHORE, March 17: Election of the president was necessary within 30 days after Senate polls, Advocate A.K. Dogar argued before a division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday.

He appeared for the Pakistan Lawyers Forum before Justices Tassadaq Husain Jilani and Raja Muhammad Sabir in an intra-court appeal, challenging dismissal of a petition against the Legal Framework Order.

He submitted that election of president by parliament was a constitutional requirement. The 1973 Constitution recognized only that person as the president of the country who had been elected by parliament. The sitting president did not fulfil this criteria.

He criticized the stance of a political party that it would accept Gen Musharraf as country’s president if he relinquishes one of the two offices currently held by him.

He contended that the Supreme Court had given three-year to Gen Musharraf to transfer power to an elected government.

Advocate Dogar said Article 41 (7) of the LFO empowers Gen Pervez Musharraf to remain the chief executive as long as he desires. It also empowers him to be the president of the country for five year at his own will.

He argued that this provision had exposed the mala fide intentions of President Musharraf who had still not yet transferred the power to a “representative government”.

The LFO was a mean to provide continuity to former military regime, he alleged.

Through the LFO, the military regime tried to amend the 1973 Constitution without any legal authority and public mandate.

Justice Jilani observed that if this argument was to be assumed correct, the provision increasing the total number of National Assembly’s seats could not be termed as a valid one. The provision had been practically exercised during the October last general elections without being approved by a parliament.

The counsel submitted that the criteria for judging the validity of LFO provisions would be “the benefit of general public and adherence to the 1973 Constitution”.

The provision referred by the court had proved to be beneficial to the general public, it would be considered valid one and all those aimed at fortifying the rule of ‘an usurper’ were to be treated as illegitimate and invalid.

About the role of the judiciary in exercising powers under the Doctrine of Necessity, the counsel submitted that to end up the chaos in the aftermath of October 1999, the then judges could have either vacated their offices in order to uphold and preserve the sanctity of the Constitution or could have broken their oath to provide a legal cover to the military intervention.

He alleged that the former military regime had misused the powers granted by the SC under the Doctrine of Necessity.

Further arguments would resume on Tuesday (today).