In Pakistan, president seeks supreme court opinion on defection of parliamentarians

The Supreme Court (SC) decided [...] to form a larger bench to hear the presidential reference filed by the government, which sought its opinion on Article 63-A of the Constitution, related to parliamentarians being disqualified on grounds of defection. Earlier, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government submitted a presidential reference in the top court. The reference was submitted by Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Khalid Jawed Khan on behalf of President Arif Alvi, which was heard by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Munib Akhtar. It deals with the "legal status of the vote of party members when they are clearly involved in horse-trading and change their loyalties in exchange for money", as per Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry. On Friday, the government had decided to file a reference in SC to seek an interpretation of Article 63-A after several PTI lawmakers came out in the open saying they would vote on the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
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