Achakzai, Allama Nasir Abbas ask FCC to order release of Sohail Afridi, detained lawmakers

Opposition leaders in Pakistan’s National Assembly and Senate on Saturday petitioned the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to order the release of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and other elected representatives who they allege have been unlawfully detained.

ISLAMABAD: Opposition leaders in National Assembly and Senate on Saturday petitioned the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to order the release of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and other elected representatives who they allege have been unlawfully detained.

National Assembly Opposition Leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Senate Opposition Leader Raja Nasir Abbas jointly filed the petition, seeking the enforcement of fundamental rights and constitutional protections for Afridi, provincial assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati and seven other members of the provincial assembly, as well as six members of the National Assembly.

Afridi has not been seen publicly since the federal government imposed governor’s rule and a state of emergency in the province on October 11. A federal minister confirmed the following day that Afridi and some members of his cabinet had been taken into preventive custody.

The federal government transferred executive powers to provincial Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, while the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has maintained that Afridi remains the chief minister with the support of party founder and former prime minister Imran Khan.

The petition names as respondents the federal secretaries of interior and defence, the KP chief secretary, the secretary of the provincial Home and Tribal Affairs Department, the provincial inspector general of police, the Peshawar capital city police officer, the Peshawar deputy commissioner and the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency.

It argues that the detentions raise questions about constitutional supremacy, the democratic mandate and the limits of executive authority under Articles 232, 234 and 245 of the Constitution. It also cites constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights under Articles 4, 9, 10, 14, 17 and 19-A.

The petition asks the court to determine whether the arrest, intimidation or restriction of elected lawmakers in a way that prevents them from representing their constituencies amounts to disenfranchisement and undermines representative democracy.

It also asks the FCC to declare that emergency measures, the transfer of provincial executive powers or the deployment of armed forces do not give state authorities unrestricted powers to disregard constitutional safeguards and fundamental rights.

The applicants further seek a declaration that the liberty, dignity, political association and representative functions of elected lawmakers are constitutionally protected, and that any unlawful detention or restriction of their movement has no legal effect.

They have also asked the court to order the authorities to produce the detained lawmakers before it.

The petition maintains that the exercise of executive and administrative powers under governor’s rule does not suspend the state’s constitutional obligations or place public officials beyond judicial scrutiny.

The filing follows a separate petition submitted on Thursday by PTI lawmaker Shandana Gulzar, who also sought the release of Afridi, the provincial assembly speaker and other party workers.

Gulzar’s petition asked the authorities to disclose the detainees’ whereabouts, identify the officials responsible for their custody and provide the legal grounds and circumstances of their detention. It also sought their production before the court so that their condition and the legality of their detention could be examined.

In a separate development on Saturday, Abbas and Balochistan National Party chairman Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal filed an application seeking to join proceedings concerning an FCC order that barred the Peshawar High Court (PHC) from hearing petitions related to the detention of PTI activists.

The matter is expected to be taken up by the FCC on Monday, November 16.

The PHC had granted interim bail to scores of PTI activists detained under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance on October 31, following the imposition of emergency rule in KP. On November 5, the FCC restrained the high court from hearing cases concerning the arrests of activists detained under the ordinance.

In their application, Abbas and Mengal, through their lawyer Sardar Latif Khosa, argued that they were necessary parties to the proceedings because the FCC’s order affected their constitutional rights. They said they would suffer irreparable harm and be denied the opportunity to be heard if they were not allowed to join the case.

The applicants asked the FCC to clarify, modify or recall its November 5 order to the extent that it suspended proceedings challenging the proclamation of emergency and the imposition of governor’s rule in KP.

They also argued that Article 245 could not be used to prevent the high court from examining whether the constitutional conditions for invoking the provision had been met, according to the application.