LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday expressed displeasure at the unpreparedness of a lawyer of a petitioner who challenged a presidential ordinance regarding the appointment of retired judges as election tribunals.

Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza also questioned how an ordinance could be based on malice and noted that the petition had been filed without preparation.

On behalf of the federal government, Assistant Attorney General Sheraz Zaka argued that the petition was not maintainable and liable to be dismissed.

The judge directed the petitioner’s counsel to come up with arguments on the maintainability of the petition.

The next date of hearing will be fixed by the registrar’s office.

A citizen, Mashkoor Hussain, had filed the petition through Advocate Nadeem Sarwar against the federal government, the Ministry of Law and others as respondents, saying the presidential ordinance was based on malice.

The petitioner said a decision on the appointment of the election tribunal had already been passed by the LHC. He said the ordinance could not be applicable to the 2024 general election. He asked the court to declare the ordinance illegal and unconstitutional.

A similar petition filed by the Judicial Activism Panel (JAP) has been fixed for hearing before Justice Shahid Karim on Tuesday (today).

JAP chairman Advocate Azhar Siddique submitted in the petition that the ordinance was unconstitutional as the law about the appointment of the election tribunal was already there. He said the government had issued the ordinance only to frustrate an order of the high court.

On May 29, a LHC single bench, comprising Justice Shahid Karim, ordered the ECP to notify six more election tribunals (ETs) for Punjab in light of the nominations sent by the chief justice.

On May 27, Acting President Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani passed “The Election (Amendment) Ordinance, 2024”, which provided appointment of retired judges as the election tribunals and that too without the consultation of the chief justice of the respective high court.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2024