LAHORE: A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday issued a notice to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on a petition challenging the existence of the NAB Ordinance, 1999, and conviction of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members in the Avenfield properties case under the same.
The bench, comprising Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Atir Mahmood and Justice Shahid Jamil Khan, sought a reply from the anti-corruption watchdog by Wednesday (August 29).
The court also decided that the further proceedings would be held on a day-to-day basis.
On July 19, a LHC single bench comprising Justice Ali Akbar Qureshi had observed that legal points raised in the petition were important in nature and required to be decided by a larger bench.
Senior lawyer Dogar had filed the petition against the conviction of Sharifs, besides challenging the existence of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999.
In his petition, Dogar said that Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (r) Safdar were convicted under the law, which had become dead (non-existent), and as such accountability court had no jurisdiction to try and convict Sharifs. He stated that millions of people had been suffering from the agony of proceedings under a law, which was constitutionally non-existent.
He requested the court to suspend the operation of the accountability court’s judgement for being a court established under a non-existing law.
The LHC single bench had already issued notices to attorney general of Pakistan and the Law Ministry on the petition.
Challenging the validity of the NAO, Dogar argued that it had been promulgated by former military dictator General (r) Pervez Musharraf under Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) No 1 of 1999 as well as Order No 9 of 1999.
He submitted that the order No 9 was promulgated only to amend PCO No 1 of 1999 by inserting section 5A (1) in it to the effect that limitation of 120 days prescribed under Article 89 of the constitution to any ordinance by the president would not be applicable to the laws made under PCO No 1 of 1999.
He pleaded that under article 270-AA of the Constitution through 18th amendment, the PCO No 1 of 1999 was declared without lawful authority and of no legal effect. He asserted that once the PCO No 1 was declared without lawful authority and of no legal effect, the amendments made to it under order No 9 of 1999 would also stand lapsed and therefore, the limitation period of 120 days prescribed under Article 89 would be applicable to the NAB ordinance.
He said that according to Sub-article 2 of Article 270-AA of the constitution, certain laws, which were still enforced, should continue to remain enforced unless amended by the competent legislation. He requested the court to declare that after the 18thamendment and insertion of Article 270-AA in the constitution, the NAB ordinance had ceased to be the law and become non-existent and a dead letter.
Published in Daily Times, August 28th 2018.
