The Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended membership of Nadia Gabol and Farhat Muhammad Khan of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
A three member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heard the dual-nationality case on Wednesday.
The court opened today with the arguments by Malik Jameel’s counsel Imtiaz Siddiqui, who earlier filed his client’s written statement on oath.
PML-N’s Malik Jameel Awan, who Supreme Court (SC) suspended from his membership of National Assembly yesterday, submitted a written rejoinder to the apex court Wednesday.
During hearing, Imtiaz Siddiqui, counsel for Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz’s Jameel Malik, argued that in the Netherlands, nationality was different from citizenship.
Justice Jawwad S. Khwaja remarked the hearing of the case will not be possible if the law of Holland is not comprehended.
Addressing Malik’s counsel Siddiqui, the Chief Justice Chaudhry noted, “According to you, there is no concept of citizenship in Holland; instead, only nationality exists there?”
Upon which, Justice Khawaja said: “We are not comprehending the difference between citizenship and nationality.”
Responding to the bench’s order to produce Dutch Constitution regarding nationality, Imtiaz Siddiqui said he could find nothing but Holland’s Nationality Act 2010; however, he contacted immigration lawyers to present further details to the court in this regard.
After which Chief Justice Iftikhar remarked that the counsel should produce the statute which distinguishes between citizenship and nationality.
Also during the hearing, Chief Justice Iftikhar expressed displeasure over the provision of “erroneous information” on the travel details of MPA Tariq Alwana.
During a previous hearing, Alwana had informed the court that he had never travelled to any country, except Saudi Arabia. When a copy of an American passport allegedly belonging to him was shown to him, he had said that the picture on the passport showed it was not his.
Supreme Court of Pakistan had also suspended membership of lawmakers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Pakistan People’s Party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan Muslim-League-Q.
Rehman Malik and Farahnaz Isfahani were prominent among those who lost their membership due to dual nationality. Hearing of the case has been adjourned for two weeks.