F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has demanded the allocation of reserved seats under the amended Election Act. Speaker Ayaz Sadiq wrote a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja regarding the reserved seats.
He further mentioned that the Supreme Court’s decision on reserved seats cannot be implemented after the amendment to the Election Act. In the letter, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq told the chief election commissioner that reserved seats cannot be changed after the amendment to the Election Act. The Election Act has been amended after the Supreme Court’s decision, and the amendment applies retroactively.
He said that the Election Act is currently in effect, so the Election Commission should implement the law made by Parliament and adhere to the principles of democracy and parliamentary supremacy. In the letter to the chief election commissioner, Ayaz Sadiq stated, “As the Speaker of the National Assembly, he wishes to address the important issue of the sanctity and autonomy of the Parliament. It is essential to follow parliamentary principles to maintain the autonomy and dignity of the parliamentary system.”
He wrote that an independent member who joins a political party cannot switch parties under the amended Election Act. The amended Election Act has been applied retroactively from 2017, and implementing it is the constitutional and legal responsibility of the Election Commission.
Meanwhile, the amendment to Section 104 reads that the declaration, consent or affidavit, by whatever name called, of an independent returned candidate once given for joining a political party shall be irrevocable and cannot be substituted or withdrawn. Furthermore, the letter pointed out Section 1 (2) of the Amended Election Act, which states that the said amendments will have retrospective effect from 2017 when the Election Act 2017 was passed.
“In view of this backdrop, it is stated that independent returned candidates who have already given a joining to a political party cannot be allowed to now switch parties in terms of the Amended Election Act which has paramount and overriding effect,” Sadiq wrote. The speaker also stated that no allocation can now be made by the ECP without applying the Amended Election Act to the fullest. “As the SC judgement was rendered based on the law prior to the enactment of the amendment, the said judgment is now incapable of implementation,” it said, noting that it is the Amended Election Act that shall prevail and supersede the prior ruling.
