On Friday, the Lahore High Court (LHC) denied the petitions challenging Parliament’s reduction of the lifelong disqualification period to five years.
Judge Shahid Bilal Hasan of the Lahore High Court declared that a decision on the plea submitted by attorney Azhar Siddique is still pending. The applications were declared non-maintainable by the court.
Shabbir Ismail, a citizen, filed a plea, which was heard by Justice Shahid Bilal Hasan, who represented the federal government.
In his appeal, the petitioner argued that the statute of disqualification for life had been changed by parliament to only last five years.
The regulations said that parliament could not change the lifetime disqualification provision by designating certain members. The petitioner argued that laws passed by parliament violated decisions made by the Supreme Court.
He said that Article 62(!)(F) of the Constitution, which the Supreme Court had already clarified, constituted the basis for the lifetime disqualification.
The petitioner asked the LHC to declare unlawful the law that reduced the disqualification period to five years.
Afterwards, on counsel Azhar Siddique’s plea, Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan reserved his decision and rejected the motion to reduce the lifetime ban period to five years.
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