The Supreme Court was moved on Thursday to prevent Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Nisar Ali Khan from exercising his recently-acquired constitutional powers to nominate a caretaker prime minister. The SC was reminded that at Nisar’s objection last year, the SC had disqualified one of its former judges, Syed Deedar Hussain Shah, from holding the office of the National Accountability Bureau chairman. “Now is the time to examine the constitutional credentials of the respondent and give a ruling about the fitness,” stated the appellant Shahid Orakzai. The court was asked to note the recent advantage the leader of opposition had gained in the game after his nominee was appointed the chief election commissioner.
The Islamabad High Court is also to hear a petition against the appointment of the octogenarian Jurist Fakhruddin G Ibrahim as the commissioner. The final decision about the caretaker prime minister, under the 20th Amendment, is to be taken by the five-member election commission headed by Ibrahim. “This court may, therefore take into account the inherent risk and intrinsic jeopardy in the extensive opportunities and openings available to the leader of the opposition in critical situations under the amended constitution. Any person with doubtful loyalty can exploit the given chance or authority even for a short span of time. One’s lip deep commitment to the sovereignty of Pakistan is not to be trusted by the constitution,” Orakzai pointed out. The court was asked to declare that a person whose family takes citizenship of another state is not qualified to represent the people of Pakistan because the constitution considers the public representatives a family man. The court was further told that all public representatives while swearing allegiance to Pakistan commit themselves to preserve its Islamic ideology and the person is disqualified from being a candidate or being a member if any of his dependents take a loan of two million rupees from any bank which has remained unpaid for more than one year.
