Jury still out on disqualification period

ISLAMABAD — Is Nawaz Sharif disqualified for life, or is there a possibility of him staging a comeback? A day after the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from holding public office, legal experts and political observers appear equally confused, as are ordinary Pakistani citizens.

When the question was put to seasoned lawyers, most seemed confused.

Some said the question needed to be addressed since it has remain unanswered for far too long,

Dawn reported. A five-member bench disqualified Sharif under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, which state that a member of the parliament should be “truthful” and “righteous”.

Tariq Mehmood, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, told the newspaper that a larger bench of the Supreme Court was seized with a number of cases, including those of Samina Khawar Hayat and Mohammed Haneef, in which the moot point was to determine whether disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution was perpetual or not.

Former chief justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, hearing one of such cases, had wondered how anyone could be disqualified from participating in elections forever on the basis of articles 62 and 63, saying people could reform themselves to be qualified under the provisions at some point of time.

Senior lawyer Raheel Kamran Sheikh recalled that former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was disqualified on June 19, 2012, from parliament for committing contempt of court under Article 63, which specified disqualification for five years.

Unfortunately under Article 62(1)(f) no period of disqualification has been specified, he said, but endorsed what Mehmood observed.