Federal Constitutional Court dismisses JUI-F appeal over reserved seat, upholding Election Commission decision
A two-member bench headed by Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan rejected JUI-F's challenge to the election of Sadaf Ehsan on a women's reserved seat, ruling that the Election Commission's decision stands.
Pakistan's Federal Constitutional Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) in a dispute over a women's reserved seat, upholding the Election Commission of Pakistan's decision and bringing an unusual chapter in the country's reserved-seat litigation to a close.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Aamer Farooq heard the case and rejected the party's petition after hearing arguments from both sides, according to reports of the proceedings.
At the centre of the dispute was Sadaf Ehsan, whom the Election Commission had notified as a JUI-F candidate for a women's reserved seat. The party, however, has consistently maintained that she was not its candidate and was not included in its priority list for reserved seats.
JUI-F's counsel, Senator Kamran Murtaza, told the court that the party had submitted four names to the Election Commission for the reserved seats. He argued that the commission could not make changes to a list submitted by a political party, and that the notification of a candidate the party had not chosen was wrong in law.
The Election Commission's position, which the court accepted, was that its decision stood. After hearing the arguments, the bench upheld the commission's decision and dismissed the appeal, meaning Sadaf Ehsan will retain the reserved seat.
The case was unusual in a way the party's own lawyer acknowledged in court. Senator Murtaza described it as a unique case in Pakistan's history: a political party challenging the election of a person the Election Commission had declared elected on its own reserved-seat allocation, while insisting that the person was not its candidate at all.
The dispute grew out of the wider arguments over the allocation of reserved seats that followed the general elections, when legal and constitutional questions arose between the Election Commission and several political parties over how the seats for women and minorities should be distributed.
Reserved seats are allocated to political parties in proportion to the general seats they win, on the basis of priority lists the parties submit to the Election Commission before the elections. Because the lists determine who enters parliament without a direct contest, any disagreement over a name on a list can quickly become a constitutional question, as this case showed.
The JUI-F had taken its challenge to the courts after the Election Commission notified Sadaf Ehsan as its candidate for the reserved seat. The party's case was that the commission had gone beyond the list it had submitted, and that a party's own choice of candidates for its reserved seats could not be rewritten by the election authority.
The court's decision settles this particular dispute, but the subject of reserved seats remains a live one in Pakistan's public and legal debate. The Election Commission has in recent days publicly defended its handling of reserved-seat allocation, responding to criticism from a former senior judge over the way the seats were distributed after the elections.
For the JUI-F, the ruling is a setback in a case it pursued through the courts, though the party has not said whether it will take the matter further. For Sadaf Ehsan, the decision confirms her place in the legislature on the women's reserved seat.
What happens next will depend on whether the party accepts the verdict or looks for another legal avenue. For now, the Federal Constitutional Court's order stands, the Election Commission's notification remains in force, and the seat stays where the commission placed it.
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