After five days of hearing which kept most of Pakistan, its neighbours and the far corners of the world spellbound, the 5-judge bench of the Pakistani Supreme Court observed that the ruling of the deputy speaker that resulted in the dissolution of the assembly and a subsequent constitutional crisis was wrong.
The court has reserved the verdict and will be announced at 7:30 PST . But during the hearing on Thursday, the bench was unanimous that the deputy speaker of the Assembly had violated the constitution on April 3 by rejecting the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“The assembly could not be dissolved during the no-confidence motion,” the Pakistani Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial said in his opinion, adding that the dissolution of the assembly after tabling the resolution in the house was against the Constitution.
The court also said that the deputy speaker just read the statement rejecting the motion which was signed by the speaker.
“Why did not the speaker preside over the session,” One judge wondered. It seems that all five judges were unanimous in agreeing that calling the motion foreign funded and foreign conspiracy was done without any investigation by the relevant agencies.
The court said that it will move forward only after seeing national interest and practical possibilities.
Before the court went for a break, it called the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif to the rostrum who told the court that if the judiciary acknowledges that the ruling of the deputy speaker was “unconstitutional”, then it should restore the Assembly.
The apex court asked Sharif that the opposition has been demanding fresh elections and now that they have the opportunity, why are they against it?
According to GEO news, Shahbaz said that the election has been “stolen” and laws of the constitution have been “violated”; to which one of the judges said that all laws that have been violated will be restored.
Talking to media, Shehbaz Sharif said that “the no-confidence motion against PM Imran Khan will automatically be restored once the apex court rules out the ruling of the deputy speaker.”
