Judicial diatribe | The Express Tribune
Key Takeaways
- The Constitutional Bench declared the July 12, 2024 reserved seats judgement was outside the court's legal authority.
- The previous judgement had granted reserved seats to PTI based on its independents joining Sunni Tehrik.
- The reversal was delivered in harsh language, accusing the prior ruling of ignoring the 'will of people' and the 'command of the Constitution'.
- The bench stated the July 12 order improperly intervened in the domain of the legislature using specific election circumstances.
- The ruling suggests the court took over the determination of reserved seats, which should be based on the electorate's will.
The Constitutional Bench has overturned the July 12, 2024 judgement concerning reserved seats, ruling that the original decision was outside the court's legal authority. The initial majority verdict had granted reserved seats to PTI based on its independent candidates joining Sunni Tehrik on the floor of the house. The detailed judgment reversing this was delivered in surprisingly harsh language, explicitly stating that the previous ruling ignored the 'will of people' and the 'command of the Constitution.' The unanimously authored dictum criticized the previous judges for using the 'peculiar facts and circumstances of the General Election of 2024 to issue a series of declarations and directives' instead of following a proper legal course, thereby intervening in the legislature's domain. This 40-page interpretation will likely initiate debate concerning the judicial treatment of the beleaguered PTI, which felt politically cornered and denied legal space. The bench noted that the indirect elections for reserved seats, based on proportional representation, were effectively taken over by the court, ignoring the electorate's will in favor of PTI leadership's wishes.
