PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the attorney general for Pakistan seeking the response of the federal government to a petition that challenged the constitutional provisions for reserving seats for non-Muslims in the national and provincial assemblies and sought orders for direct elections on those seats.

A bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Muhammad Faheem Wali issued the order after preliminary hearing into the petition of two members of Christian community, Rameez Alam and Anil Maseeh, requesting the court to declare as undemocratic and unconstitutional the provisions of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010, through which changes were made in Constitution and mechanism for filling the reserved seats for non-Muslims was changed.

They requested the court to declare that the mode of filling reserved seats in question violated fundamental rights and didn’t follow the preamble of the Constitution.

The petitioners prayed the court to restore the pre-amendment articles 51(6) and 106(3) of Constitution.

Petitioner challenged constitutional provisions for those reserved seats in assemblies

The petition has the secretaries of the cabinet and law divisions as respondents.

The petitioners’ counsel, Nouman Muhib Kakakhel, said the Constitution’s articles 51 and 106 were amended so that assembly members of religious minorities could be selected by political parties on proportional representation instead of direct election by minorities.

He argued that earlier members of religious minorities had the power to vote and elect their representative and offer themselves for elections.

The lawyer, however, said that amendment introduced an “undemocratic” system in which neither the minorities could offer themselves for elections to contest nor would they elect their representative, so representatives of minorities were not true representatives of their communities.

“The preamble of Constitution provides for safeguarding the legitimate interests of minorities and this amendment is violative of the preamble of Constitution hence liable to be struck down to this extent,” he argued.

Mr Kakakhel said that the current provisions violated the Objective Resolution, which was part of the Constitution to safeguard the rights of minorities.

He added that the present mechanism of filling the reserved seats was a violation of the democratic nature of the Constitution and violated the salient features of the Constitution, so they should be struck down to the extent of amendments to articles 51 and 106.

The lawyer argued that after the amendment, true representatives of the community were not being empowered to represent and rather, the leaders were imposed by Muslim majority political parties.

He added that those holding minority seats in assemblies had no connection with non-Muslims and they even refused to meet them insisting they didn’t reach assemblies with the help of their votes.

Mr Kakakhel argued that the assembly members elected on reserved seats worked on the command of their respective parties instead of protecting the interests of religious minorities.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2024