Former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif Tuesday revealed the date for his elder brother and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan ahead of the upcoming elections to lead the party’s political campaign in the country.
“Nawaz Sharif will reach Pakistan on October 21,” Shehbaz said after a meeting with Nawaz in London.
Kh Asif was also present in the meeting.
Nawaz — who has been in self-imposed exile in London since November 2019 owing to health reasons — was disqualified for life in 2017 by the Supreme Court for not declaring a receivable salary.
He was also serving a jail term before being sent to London for the treatment.
During the meeting, PML-N leaders also discussed the economic situation of the country and also deliberated upon the party’s strategy for the upcoming elections.
The possibility of Nawaz’s return was increased after the Senate passed amendments to the Election Act changing the limitations of how long a parliamentarian can be disqualified.
In the rules passed by the upper house on June 17, in cases where the duration has not been specifically outlined, a person’s disqualification to run for provincial or central legislatures will not exceed five years.
They also have a chance to overturn their disqualifications, with the help of four sections of the Supreme Court (Review of Judgements and Orders) Act 2023.
Sharif left for London on November 19, 2019, after he was released by the Islamabad High Court on bail from a seven-year sentence for corruption. His bail was approved on medical grounds for eight weeks in the Al Azizia case.
He was diagnosed with an immune system disorder. The 70-year-old PML-N supremo had got bail in two corruption cases and is facing another reference by the National Accountability Bureau.
His departure had come after deliberation and undertaking by his brother and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that stated he would “ensure the return of his brother within four weeks or on certification by doctors that he has regained his health and is fit to return back to Pakistan”.
Many experts and journalists had linked Nawaz’s return to Pakistan with the incumbent chief justice of Pakistan, whom he has been wary of.
Nawaz case,
The Supreme Court disqualified Sharif on July 28, 2017 from holding public office in a decision on the Panama Papers case. Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, who had headed the apex court’s implementation bench following its April 20 order on the Panama Papers case, announced that the larger bench had unanimously deemed Sharif unfit for holding office and would also order an accountability court to open references against him and his family, and other respondents.
Then Sharif was removed as PML-N head after a three-member Supreme Court bench led by the then by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar said that an individual disqualified under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution cannot serve as head of a political party.
The verdict was in reply to as many as 17 petitions challenging the Elections Act 2017, which had been bulldozed through Parliament last year to pave the way for Sharif’s return to the PML-N’s helm as party president.
“Just for a man you are giving such decisions and you have no care for… did you bother to take suo motu on what Justice Shaukat Siddiqui said and former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa said that injustice was made with Nawaz Sharif and a wrong decision was given for him,” Sharif said at a press conference in London on March 31.
He was speaking on the Supreme Court’s proceedings into the PTI’s petition challenging the ECP’s decision to postpone the elections to the Punjab Assembly from April 30 to October 8.
“This is a national issue,” he had said.
