The Supreme Court (SC) will hear on Tuesday an intra-court appeal filed by the federal government against the verdict that nullified the amendments introduced in the National Accountability (NAB) laws. Chief Justice Faez Isa will head a five-member larger bench comprising Justice Amin-ud-Din, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, as the apex court issued to the respective counsels of the parties involved in the matter. A three-member bench led by former chief justice Umar Ata Bandial  which also included Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah had declared in a 2-1 majority judgment that the changes made by the parliament under the guidance of the then ruling coalition were unconstitutional.

As a result, hundreds of cases also involving a former president Asif Ali Zardari and six ex-prime ministers were sent back to the accountability courts. However, Justice Shah, in his dissenting note, had made strong observations about the “unelected judges” usurping the public representatives elected by voters. According to Justice Shah, the basic question was of the limits of unelected judges’ decision making on a law passed by the parliament. Hence, the majority judgment didn’t grasp the powers enjoyed by the parliament. The dissenting note also mentioned that the parliament’s authority to legislate never ends. If the legislature can make NAB law, it can also withdraw and amend the same. “By not agreeing with the majority judgment, I hereby rejected the petition.”

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)