Roving Periscope: Now, Pak SC throws a spanner in ex-PM Nawaz’s return from self-exile

Virendra Pandit 

New Delhi: In the ongoing political drama, Pakistan Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a recently-passed judgments review law, which will now dim former Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s prospects to challenge his lifetime disqualification from contesting elections and return home.

The apex court’s ruling came on the day his younger brother, outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government dissolved the Lower House of Parliament paving the way for National Assembly’s elections later this year.

The Shebhaz government had recently modified the review process of the SC’s judgments to ease Nawaz’s return home from self-exile in London since 2019.

Nawaz, 73, was disqualified in 2017 by a five-member bench of the apex court but he couldn’t file an appeal as there was no law to challenge the judgment of the top judiciary. The SC is viewed in the South Asian country as ‘close’ to former PM Imran Khan, who was jailed last week on corruption charges.

With Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict, striking down as null and void a recently enacted law modifying the review process of its judgments, the former PM’s hopes were dashed as he sought to challenge his lifetime disqualification from holding any public office.

A three-member bench of the apex court led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar ruled that the Supreme Court (Review of Judgments and Orders) Act 2023 was “unconstitutional.”

The law enacted by the Pakistan government in May was “aimed at facilitating and strengthening the Supreme Court in exercising its powers to review its judgments and orders”—in effect, it sought to limit the disqualification period of lawmakers.

It enlarged the review powers of the apex court against its own judgments and orders issued under the suo motu jurisdiction. It was said Nawaz could be a beneficiary as he was disqualified under this jurisdiction. In 2018, he became ineligible to hold public office for life after a Supreme Court verdict.

The former PM has been living in London since November 2019 for ‘medical treatment’ after a Pakistani court allowed him a four-week reprieve and then he did not return.

Nawaz Sharif, who has served as the Pakistan PM for three non-consecutive terms, was serving a seven-year sentence in the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore in the Al-Azizia corruption case before he left for London, the media reported on Friday.

Shehbaz Sharif has already said Nawaz Sharif will be Pakistan’s PM again if their party wins the general election later this year.

The court, in its detailed verdict on Friday, stated the amended law was “repugnant to and ultra vires the Constitution” while being beyond the legislative competence of Parliament. It was an effort to interfere in the scope of the SC’s powers and jurisdiction of ordinary legislation which could only be done through an amendment in the constitution.

The law, instead of enlarging the review jurisdiction, created a new appellate jurisdiction that has no constitutional basis, impacting the independence of the judiciary, and any such law would by its nature and from its very inception, be “unconstitutional, null, void and of no legal effect”.

The law was introduced when tension between the executive and judiciary was running high due to differences over the holding of elections in the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces, as demanded by Imran Khan, who was ousted from power by the Shehbaz-led coalition in April 2022, and jailed recently.

As Chief Justice Bandial was taking action through suo motu actions, the government hurriedly passed a law to dilute his discretionary powers and also constitute panels of judges to proceed on such matters.

Reacting to the court striking down the law, former law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told Geo Apex News the verdict was unfortunate.