ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has taken a plea before the Supreme Court that through the presidential reference on Article 63-A of the Constitution, the government was trying to get democracy `purified through the intervention of the apex court by impeding the political process`.

`Such pleas for purity cannot disguise what is sought: a thwarting of the political process,` the PML-N argued before a five-judge Supreme Court bench, which is hearing a presidential reference seeking life-long disqualification for legislators determined to have defected under Article 63A of the Constitution.

Moved through senior counsel Makhdoom Ali Khan, the reply contended that the reference was premature, vague and speculative. It seeks a declaration in advance with regard to the consequences which may flow from an exercise of vote in a particular way by members of National Assembly of a particular party.

The PML-N argued that the reference seeks the Supreme Court`s intervention to eliminate dissent by declaring, as constitutional, a consequence not state din the Constitution.

Thus the reference seeks nothing short of liquidating the political life and future, as legislators, of the dissenters.

Dissent is sought to be curbed by suppressing dissenters, the PML-N statement observed.

`None of the members have defected in terms of Article 63-A of the Constitution and that mere criticism of government or its head or its policies is not defection.` According to the PML-N, the reference pleads with the apex court to declare that anyone who goes against the party line during a vote in parliament stands disqualified for life from being elected a legislator and that his vote will be disregarded.

It is a trite law that legal proceedings are not undertaken by the courts merely for academic reasons, the reply stated, adding the Constitution specifies in Article 63-A what constitutes defection and its consequences.

`The reference, however, on the basis of assumptions, seeks a blanket ruling with respect to a possible exercise of vote in a particular manner. This is both extraordinary and impermissible.

The PML-N contended the reference `seeks rewriting of the Constitution. The government wants the Supreme Court to read the word `disqualification` into Article 63-A on the premise that since no duration of `disqualification` was provided, the words `life-time` be inserted by the apex court, the reply said. The government would rather that a vote against the prime minister by any member of his party be disregarded, the PML-N argued.

`The reference does not seek an interpretation of the constitutional text and seeks to read the current political needs of the leader of a political party into the text of the Constitution under the thin guise of an unsullied and pure political process.

The object is to intimidate and threaten dissenters, the party feared.

The partisan use of Article 186 by the President to satisfy such needs threatens to make the Head of State a `football for the contending factions`, the PML-N reply observed.

According to the reply, the reference raised no questions of law or public importance. `All it sought is that the transient political expediency of the day be declared a constitutional principle.