Imran Khan has petitioned the Supreme Court to impose a lifetime ban on legislators who defect.
Imran Khan, the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), petitioned the Supreme Court on Thursday, demanding a lifetime ban from winning elections for defecting MPs.
The petition names the Election Commission of Pakistan, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Federation of Pakistan through the secretary cabinet division, and the Secretary of the Ministry of Law and Justice as respondents, according to a copy obtained by Dawn.com.
It was filed at the Supreme Court by PTI lawyer Babar Awan earlier today, and it asks for the formation of a full-court made up of all Supreme Court judges to "hear and answer this intricate subject of constitutional interpretation of Article 63-A."
The former prime minister argued in his petition that defection, also known as floor crossing, violated Article 63-A of the Constitution, which states that a parliamentarian can be disqualified for defection if he "votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the parliamentary party to which he belongs, in relation to the election of the prime minister or chief minister; or a vote of confidence or no confidence; or a vote of confidence or no confidence; or a vote of
"As stipulated in the third schedule of the Constitution, all members of the National or Provincial Assembly take an oath at the very first session of the house," he noted. "Because members' oaths plainly indicate that they shall uphold the Constitution, a member who deviates from party doctrine is actually defecting from the Constitution and violating his oath to office."
The petition said that under a parliamentary democracy, a seat in the National or Provincial Assembly was equivalent to the political party's trust in the member who brought him or her to the house.
"It can be said that any act of defection or floor crossing would amount to breach of trust imposed upon the member by the political party in circumstances where a bar has been imposed, for example in a matter of vote or no confidence against the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister, and in that case a defecting member cannot at all claim himself to be Sadiq or Amin as stated in Article 63(1)(d) of the Constitution," the petition said.
According to Khan, floor crossing has a moral connotation and hence erodes the nation's faith in the state's legislative organ and its members.
He went on to say that it further usurps the people's mandate, humiliates the system in front of the international community, and sabotages national security by allowing foreign enemies to use lawmakers as a "weapon to remove a democratically elected administration."
He urged the Supreme Court to rule that instead of committing defection as provided in Article 63-A of the Constitution, a member must first resign from his current seat in the legislature.
According to the petition, the "true spirit of the Constitution inserting anti-defection provision" was to treat defecting members' votes as "challenged or disputed votes" "liable to be excluded from final counts until the issue of voting member defection in the manner provided in Article 63-A of the Constitution is resolved."
It further stated that the court had noticed in numerous cases that defection or floor-crossing was nothing short of cancer and undermined the spirit of democratic governance, and asked the court to rule that "any kind of defection would equal to imposing a lifetime ban on winning elections."
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