Pakistan's Supreme Court overturns 2022 ruling, defecting votes now to be counted

In 2022, Pakistan's top court ruled in favour of a defection clause under Article 63-A of the constitution, discounting the votes cast contrary to the parliamentary party lines in four instances. Today's ruling means that the votes of the ballots of lawmakers against the party policy will also be counted in any further legislation.

The four instances under which the votes against party policy were disregarded are; the election of the Prime Minister, and chief minister; a vote of confidence or no-confidence; a Constitution amendment bill; and a money bill.

According to Dawn, the verdict, pronounced by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, is a significant decision in favour of the Shehbaz Sharif-led government that sought to garner support to make amendments to the Constitution, multiple of which pertain to the judiciary.

A five-judge Supreme Court larger bench comprised of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa Justices Mandokhail, Miankhel, Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Aminuddin Khan gave the verdict, after hearing the review petition filed by Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), DAWN reported,

The SCBA, in the review petition, filed in June 2022, had contended that the court's opinion on Article 63-A was not in accordance with parliamentary democracy established by the Constitution.

Justice Afghan replaced Justice Akhtar. Justice Akhtar was part of the bench that originally heard the case.

Justice Isa announced that SCBA's appeal was accepted unanimously, He said the detailed verdict would be issued later.

Article 63-A aims to restrict the voting powers of lawmakers by making them bound to the decision of the "Party Head" -- whoever is formally declared the head of the party. The penalty for violating Article 63-A is disqualification from the National Assembly and the vacation of the defecting lawmaker's seat, the Constitution states, as reported by Dawn. (ANI)