ECP decides to implement top court verdict in reserved seats case

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday decided to act on and implement the Supreme Court’s verdict in the reserved seats case.

On July 12, a 13-judge full bench of the apex court had declared that the opposition PTI was eligible to receive reserved seats for women and non-Muslims in the national and provincial assemblies, dealing a major setback to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s ruling coalition and potentially making the PTI single largest party in both houses of Parliament.

The Supreme Court had also declared the PTI a parliamentary party.

The ECP held a crucial meeting a day ago to discuss the verdict but had failed to reach a decision, with one official suggesting that the commission may need to seek further directions from the top court amid a lack of clarity.

A senior ECP official had told Dawn that the notifications of 39 PTI MNAs who mentioned their affiliation with the party had no problem. However, the documents of 41 other MNAs need detailed scrutiny.

He said that under the judgement, 41 independents would now have to file duly signed and notarised statements before the ECP within 15 days, explaining that they contested the February 8 general elections as a candidate of a particular political party.

Upon receiving these statements, the ECP will notify the concerned political party, seeking confirmation within 15 days. Following this, under Article 51 of the Constitution, the ECP will publish a list of the returned candidates on its website and submit a compliance report to the apex court.

If the ECP or PTI need further clarification, the judgement allows the commission to seek directions from the court by submitting an appropriate application to the judges constituting the majority. The ECP official had raised concerns about who in the PTI should be contacted for verification, given the party’s lack of structure and unrecognised intra-party elections, suggesting that the commission might need to seek further directions from the court.

A press release issued today by the ECP said: “The election commission has decided to implement the decision of the Supreme Court.”

It added that “instructions were issued to the legal team of the election commission that if there is any obstacle in the implementation of the decision of the Supreme Court, then they should immediately identify it so that the Supreme Court can be referred for further guidance.”

Responding to criticism from the PTI, the commission said it condemned it and rejected it.

“The demand for resignation from the commission is ridiculous. The commission will continue to work in accordance with the constitution and law without considering any kind of pressure,” the press release said.

The ECP said that it “did not misinterpret” any decision, referring to the minority judgement’s observation that the commission had misinterpreted the court’s January 13 ruling stripping the PTI of its election symbol of the ‘bat’ and mentioned the party’s candidates as independents.

The minority judgement had explained that the ECP had no authority to declare validly nominated candidates of a political party to be independent candidates.

“The election commission did not declare PTI’s intra-party election as valid. Against which PTI went to various forums and the election commission’s decision was upheld. Since PTI’s intra-party elections were not valid. In the logical consequence of which, the symbol of the ‘bat’ was withdrawn under Section 215 of the Elections Act. Therefore, blaming the election commission is very inappropriate,” the ECP press release said.

It said that 39 lawmakers who were declared as PTI MNAs by the court had indicated their affiliation with the party in their nomination papers, adding that it was necessary to submit the party ticket and a declaration to the returning officer (RO) to be a candidate of any party, but the aforementioned candidates had not done so.

Therefore, the ECP said it was not possible for the ROs to declare them as PTI candidates.

“The 41 candidates who have been declared independent have neither mentioned PTI in their nomination papers nor disclosed the affiliation of the party nor submitted any party ticket.

“Therefore, the ROs allowed them to participate in the election in an independent capacity. After winning the election, these MNAs voluntarily joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) within three days under the law. In the Supreme Court, the SIC appealed against the decision of the election commission and the Peshawar High Court (PHC). This appeal of the SIC was rejected,” the ECP pointed out.

It added that the PTI was not a party to these proceedings at any stage.

The reserved seats issue

In a 4-1 verdict in March, the ECP had ruled that the SIC was not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats “due to having non-curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats”.

The commission had also decided to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties, with the PML-N and the PPP becoming major beneficiaries with 16 and five additional seats while the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) was given four. Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.

Later the same month, the PHC had dismissed an SIC plea challenging the ECP decision and denied it reserved seats.

In April, the SIC filed a petition before the SC — moved by party chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza — seeking to set aside the PHC judgment.

The apex court on May 6 had suspended the March 14 PHC judgment as well as the March 1 ECP decision to deprive the SIC of seats reserved for women and minorities.

The SC had also ordered placing the present petitions before the three-judge committee that determines the constitution of the bench for the reconstitution of a larger bench when Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan highlighted that under Section 4 of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023, the present case should be heard by a larger bench since the issue concerns the interpretation of constitutional provisions.

The ECP subsequently suspended victory notifications of as many as 77 members of the national and provincial assemblies elected on those seats.

The suspended lawmakers include 44 from PML-N, 15 from PPP, 13 from JUI-F and one each from PML-Q, IPP, PTI-P, MQM-P and ANP.

Resultantly, the ruling coalition lost a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Parliament for now, with its numerical strength shrinking to 209 from 228. In the House of 336, the magic figure to attain a two-thirds majority comes to 224.

The PML-N’s strength in the House has reduced from 121 to 107 while PPP’s from 72 to 67.

Those suspended include 22 members of the National Assembly elected on reserved seats for women and minorities. They include 14 from PML-N, five from PPP and three from JUI-F.

Headed by the CJP, a full court meeting had considered various aspects of the controversy at length since the case is of first impression and will have a far-reaching impact on the allotment of the reserved seats among political parties in the legislature in the future as well.

The real controversy before the court was how to deal with the reserved seats if they are neither doled out to other parties having a presence in Parliament and provincial assemblies nor allotted to the SIC that did not contest the Feb 8 general elections and thus failed to secure a single seat — a legal requirement for the allotment of reserved seats according to the ECP.

The SIC, however, argued that under the concept of a proportionate representation system, it was not a constitutional requirement for the allocation of reserved seats that a political party having general seats in the assemblies had contested the general elections.