Source: Dawn via Nasir Rajput
The Supreme Court of Pakistan.— AFP/File Photo
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court made known on Monday its intention to take a decision, in the light of constitutional provisions and principles laid down in the 1993 Zaheeruddin case verdict, on a complaint that the election procedures discriminate against the Ahmadi community.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed was hearing a petition against an amendment to the election rules decreed by Gen Pervez Musharraf in 2002 that effectively declared ‘non-Muslim’ a candidate who, if his faith was challenged, refused to sign a declaration regarding his belief that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was the last of the prophets.
Petitioner Kanwar Idrees said a separate electoral list for Ahmadis was an insult meant to exclude them from the mainstream.
Gen (retd) Musharraf had promulgated the Chief Executive Order 15 of 2002, inserting Articles 7B and 7C into the Conduct of General Elections Order, 2002.
Categories: Asia, Pakistan, Pakistan Inter-Faith
Along with news Mr Nasir Rajput forwarded following comments also. Any oen can evaluate it.
This is an important development because the Court has also indicated that:
“The court will also consider Section 298C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) which was added to the law book under the Prohibition and Punishment Ordinance of 1984, in addition to the principles laid down in the Zaheeruddin case verdict.”
I am not sure from reading the news report if the legality of 298C will also be evaluated. Probably Section 298C will be considered just to evaluate the legality of separate voters list. The Court can certainly observe that it is not empowered to review the legality of 298C because it has not been challenged in the voters list case, but it can go the other way too. Any observations that the Court may make about 298C will have serious legal implications, either good and bad.
Also: If the required oath for getting on voter lists is dropped, we will get back the control of Rabwah Town Committee (actually two of them) now run by outsiders who have so far invested nothing on Rabwah from the Committee’s development funds while the roads and other infrastructure in Rabwah has started crumbling and no measures have been adopted for trash collection, etc. The constant tussle on who controls the open spaces in Rabwah will also end.