Islamabad (Staff Report): The Supreme Court has accepted a petition challenging the Elections Act 2017.
Advocate Azhar Siddiqui, in his plea, had requested the apex court to declare all sections of Elections Act 2017, which allows a disqualified parliamentarian to hold party office, as unconstitutional.
Siddiqui asserted that the recently passed law had completely encroached on the autonomy of the Election Commission of Pakistan. He maintained that barring disqualified lawmakers from running for public office for just five years is a violation of the Constitution, adding that electing a disqualified person as the head of a political party is tantamount to killing the Constitution's spirit.
The Election Reforms Act, which removed the bar on anyone deemed ineligible to hold public office from holding a position in a political party, paved the way for disqualified prime minister Nawaz Sharif to be re-elected as head of the PML-N.
However, the Senate had in October passed the Elections (Amendment) Bill 2017 with a majority vote, thus imposing a ban on disqualified persons from taking part in political activities.
