The Peoples’ Lawyers Forum (PLF) on Monday termed the Lahore High Court (LHC) decision in the dual office case against President Asif Ali Zardari, unconstitutional. Addressing a press conference, PLF Central Secretary General Muhammad Ilyas Khan said the LHC decision in the dual office case was unconstitutional as the constitution allowed every citizen to take part in the politics. He said according to Section 50 of the constitution, parliament comprised of three institutions including president, the National Assembly and the Senate. He questioned, “If these institutions are not political and do not take part in politics, then are few judges of the courts a political institution?”
Khan said if the National Assembly and the Senate were political institutions then it would be unconstitutional to bar the third constitutional institution from politics. He said an anti-people mindset always used inhuman and unconstitutional tactics to keep the public leadership away from politics. He said the “judicial murder” of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the result of the same mindset besides Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He said the bench in its decision had also admitted that political activities of the president could not be termed unconstitutional. “We believe that a writ petition could be filed under Article 199 of the constitution only when fundamental rights of anyone were being infringed,” he added.
He said in this case rights of any person were not being infringed therefore a writ could not be issued adding that the president could not be barred from keeping a political office or taking part in politics under any section of the constitution. The PLF secretary said Zardari was Pakistan Peoples’ Party co-chairman when he filed the nomination papers for the presidency, however, adding that constitution did not bar it. He asked how Zardari could keep neutrality being head of a political party. “He took part in elections on political basis and was elected, therefore, it was his constitutional right to take part in politics,” he added.
