PTI chief challenges amendments to secrets law, army act

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has moved the Supreme Court against the Official Secrets Act and the Army Amendment Act. 

The former prime minister has knocked on the door of apex court through Advocate Shoaib Shaheen who has filed a constitutional petition challenging the laws impacting lives of people. 

The petition argued that both acts violate the provisions of Article 10A, Article 8 and Article 19, and that the president did not sign the acts into law. 

The petition sought declaration of the Official Secrets Act and the Army Amendment Act as null and void until the constitutional petition is decided upon. 

President Dr Arif Alvi expressed his dissent over the Official Secrets Act and the Army Amendment Bill through his personal X (formerly Twitter) account and clarified that he did not sign either of these laws. 

However, in a startling turn of events the next day, the president publicly claimed that he had not signed the two bills since he disagreed with them and had asked his staff to return them unsigned within the stipulated time to make them ineffective, but his staff had “undermined” his will.

The law ministry had rebuked the president’s claim and asserted that the bills were received by the presidency on Aug 2, 2023, and Aug 8, 2023, respectively. Addressing a press conference after Alvi’s claim, caretaker Law Minister Ahmed Irfan Aslam had said the government had not received any of the two bills from the presidency thereafter, and thus both had become law.

The law ministry also released gazette notifications for the two laws the same day which said they were “deemed to have been assented by the president”.