A three-member bench of the Supreme Court resumed hearing the combined cases of election delay in Punjab and the SC Review of Judgements bill recently passed by the parliament.

While hearing arguments over whether the matter ought ot be fixed before a larger bench, the court dismissed a request to reject the review bill altogether.

Election Commission of Pakistan’s lawyer argued that after the passage of the new bill, the three-member bench cannot hear the case against election delay and it must be referred to a larger bench.

One petitoner argued that the review bill should be stopped from taking effect just as the court had done with the practice and procedure bill. The petitioner argued that both the laws had common elements so the same decision could be applied to both.

However, the chief justice said that stopping the review bill from taking effect was not possible. Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan said that the court needed to be told what grounds the law was being challenged on.

PTI’s Ali Zafar argued that the scope of the SC’s authority could neither be increased nor decreased through parliamentary legislation. He added that the things that the parliament can legislate on are listed in Article 141.

The court had decided to combine the petitions against the election delay and the review billa fter it had been revealed during a hearing that President Arif Alvi had signed the bill into law after it had been hurried through parliament. The law allows decisions made in suo motu cases to be challenged in the court, an option which was previoudly not available.

The court has already stopped the Supreme Court Practice and Procedure bill from taking effect. This bill was aimed at clipping the chief justice’s sole powers to form benches and take suo motu notices.