A challenge has been presented in the Lahore High Court (LHC) against the law stipulating a five-year disqualification for lawmakers.
Mian Shabbir, the plaintiff, filed the plea through his lawyer Azhar Siddique, listing the Chairman of the Senate, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Election Commission of Pakistan, and others as respondents.
The plea argues that Parliament passed an amendment in the Election Act with a simple majority, contending that such legislation requires a constitutional amendment.
According to the plea, Parliament does not have the authority to determine the duration of lawmakers’ disqualification, and it calls for the nullification of Section 232 of the Election Act.
In a related development, on January 8, the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan declared lifetime disqualification for lawmakers under Article 62 (1)(f) of the Constitution as ‘null and void.’ The ruling specified that parliamentarians would only be barred from holding office for a period of five years.
The verdict was announced by a seven-member larger bench, led by the Chief Justice of Pakistan and including Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Yahya Afridi, Aminuddin Khan, Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, and Musarrat Hilali.
This decision resulted from a set of petitions seeking clarification on whether the disqualification period for a lawmaker was five years or a lifetime.
