ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court unanimously accepted a review petition against its 2022 verdict related to the defection clause under Article 63-A of the Constitution.
Through its May 17, 2022 verdict, the SC had declared that votes cast contrary to the parliamentary party lines in four instances outlined in Article 63-A should not be counted. Today’s ruling means that in any future legislation, the ballots of lawmakers who vote against party policy will be counted.
These four instances are the election of prime minister and chief minister; a vote of confidence or no-confidence; a Constitution amendment bill; and a money bill.
The verdict, pronounced by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, could potentially provide major relief to the government in its attempts to garner the required support to make a set of amendments to the Constitution, multiple of which pertain to the judiciary.
The 2022 response to the presidential reference filed by then-president Arif Alvi was a 3-2 split decision, with then-CJP Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar being the majority verdict authors.
Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail were the dissenting judges, who had said that any further interpretation of Article 63-A would amount to “rewriting or reading into the Constitution”. The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) — the petitioner in the case — had also contended the same.
A five-member bench — headed by CJP Isa and also including Justices Mandokhail, Miankhel, Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Aminuddin Khan — resumed hearing today the review plea filed by SCBA in June 2022.
Justice Afghan had been included after Justice Akhtar — part of the bench that originally heard the case — and senior puisne judge Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah successively chose not to sit on the larger bench due to reservations on a recent ordinance pertaining to bench formation.
In a previous hearing, CJP Isa had poked holes in the opinion rendered by the previous larger bench. The court dismissed objections raised by Zafar, Imran’s counsel, on the bench’s constitution in light of the ordinance.
