Hamza files review plea in CM election case

LAHORE:FORMER Punjab chief minister Hamza Shahbaz has challenged the Supreme Court order which had set aside the Punjab Assembly deputy speaker’s ruling which discarded ten votes of the Pakistan Muslim League-quaid (PML-Q).

Hamza, through Mansoor Awan, filed a review petition in the apex court against the July 26 order which thwarted former deputy speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari’s decision and declared Pervez Elahi as the new chief minister.

The Pml-nawaz leader prayed that a full court be constituted to decide the maters involving the interpretation and application of Article 63A of the Constitution in this regard, as well as other connected maters and that they be heard together by the full court or at least a 12-member bench.

The review petition submited that without “prejudice, the order, by holding that directions of the Parliamentary Party sans any role of the Party/party Head is binding,” contradicted the apex court’s ruling dated May 17, 2022, on Article 63A given in Presidential Reference No.1 of 2022 wherein the Supreme Court extended the right of a political party under Article 17(2) to Article 63A, and arrived “at the conclusion that a vote contrary to the party policy is to be disregarded and not counted.”

It maintained that the opinion of the apex court in the presidential reference was contrary to the leter of Article 63A and that votes polled contrary to the directions could not be disregarded.

Hamza submits that the opinion of this Supreme Court in Presidential Reference No.1 amounts to rewriting the Constitution, which is impermissible. The reference to the opinion in Presidential Reference No.1, for the purposes of this instant Petition, may kindly be taken and understood in the present context and submissions made herein are specifically in the context of the application of the aforesaid opinion on the ruling of the Deputy Speaker dated 22.07.2022.”

The petition reiterated that a review petition against the order in the presidential reference was already pending before the SC and whatever had been submited in relation to the aforesaid order was “without prejudice to the pending review petition.”

The review petition stated that the court in its order had failed to appreciate that when a justice signs a judgment, then to the extent that judgment is not expressly controverted in the separate opinion, that justice remains bound by the judgment he has put a signature to, whereas the order makes the inverse and counter-intuitive inference that because other aspects were covered in the separately rendered decision.