Hearing on Benazir's plea begins

A two-member bench of the Sindh High Court yesterday ordered the attorney general to respond on August 21 to a petition filed by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto challenging her disqualification.

The bench, comprising Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Ali Aslam Jaffery, would decide about the admissibility of Bhutto's petition after the response from state lawyers, court officials said.

Bhutto, twice elected prime minister of Pakistan, in her petition on Thursday, also urged the court to prohibit the government from refusing to accept her nomination papers as a candidate for the October elections.

Bhutto has been given a three-year prison term by a court in two separate cases for abstaining from its proceedings. Under the law, a convicted person is barred from running in the election or holding public office.

The petition said that the law does not apply to Bhutto because defence lawyers represented her in the court.

Kamal Azfar, one of Bhutto's lawyers, said his client did not abscond from the country, but left it with the Lahore High Court's permission.

"She was represented by her lawyer. The issue before the court is the revival of democracy in Pakistan," he told reporters.

"There have been several attempts to bar Ms Bhutto from politics. Special laws have been enacted just to force her out of politics, which is unconstitutional," he said.

Azfar told the court that only Pakistani voters should be allowed to decide who can and cannot be elected.

"During my argument I stressed that it is the issue of the representative democracy, in which only the people have the right to elect or reject and not through unconstitutional means," Azfar said.

"My client has been elected (to parliament) four times, was twice prime minister and has now been subjected to victimisation through unconstitutional means."

The military-led government says that Bhutto will not be allowed to run in elections or hold a public office because of her involvement in corruption.

Bhutto, who is living in a self-exile since early 1999, has filed the petition at a time when she struggles to salvage her political career.

She has repeatedly vowed to return to the country ahead of elections and lead her party in the polls.

Bhutto's petition urged the court to repeal two laws that she claims were passed specifically to oust her from politics and stop her from returning to the country.

Bhutto told the media in separate interviews from London last week that she would return to Pakistan in late August or early September to pursue her bid for re-election, despite threats to arrest her on arrival.

Her spokesman Farhatullah Babar said on Wednesday that Bhutto would return and stay in Pakistan even if her legal challenge fails and she cannot contest the polls.