A full bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) comprising 17 judges dismissed 35 petitions against 18th and 21st Amendments and directed to fill the seats of reserved minorities by direct election and minority votes.
Christian Leader and World Minorities Alliance Convener J Salik challenged the filling of ten seats reserved for non-Muslims through ‘proportionate representation of the majority parties under Article 51 of the Constitution as amended by 18th Amendment’. Advocate Zulfiqar Bhutto represented the petitioner Salik.
In the SC’s full court judgment, some judges of the bench in their dissenting notes gave mandatory remarks directing the federal government to manage to fill reserved minorities’ seats by direct election and through minorities’ votes.
Article 51 of the Constitution was substantially amended by the 18th amendment in respect of seats reserved for minorities. These amendments were challenged by Julius Salak, a member of the minority Christian community, in Constitution Petition no 43 of 2010. He raised objection to sub-clauses 6(c) and (e) of Article 51 of the Constitution as amended by the 18th amendment.
Article 51 states that there shall be 342 seats for members in the National Assembly, including seats reserved for women and non-Muslims while sub-clause 6(c) states that the constituency for all seats reserved for non-Muslims shall be the whole country.
Sub-clause 6(e) says members to the seats reserved for non-Muslims shall be elected in accordance with law through proportional representation system of political parties’ lists of candidates on the basis of total number of general seats won by each political party in the National Assembly.
