Pakistan Senate passes Bill to limit disqualification period; Opposition calls it attempt to ensure Nawaz Sharif's participation in polls

Pakistan’s Senate has passed a Bill to ensure no parliamentarian is disqualified for a lifetime, a move termed by the Opposition as an attempt to clear the way for former premier Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country and his participation in the upcoming elections.

Pakistan's Senate has passed a Bill to ensure no parliamentarian is disqualified for a lifetime, a move termed by the Opposition as an attempt to clear the way for former premier Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country and his participation in the upcoming elections.

Nawaz Sharif was disqualified in 2017 by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court. In 2018, he became ineligible to hold public office for life after a Supreme Court verdict.

The 73-year-old former premier has been living in London since November 2019 for medical treatment after a Pakistani court allowed him a four-week reprieve.

Nawaz Sharif, who has served as the prime minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms, was serving seven-year imprisonment in the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore in the Al-Azizia corruption case before he left for London.

The Senate on Friday passed the Bill seeking to limit the disqualification of lawmakers to five years with retrospective effect, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The move comes a day after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged his elder brother Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N supremo, to return from London and lead the poll campaign of the party in the general election and become the premier of the nation for a record fourth time.

A copy of the bill presented in the Senate on Friday included an amendment to Section 232 (Qualifications and Disqualifications) of the Election Act, 2017.