Chosen by the People: Articles 62, 63 and the Issue of Qualification and Disqualification of Public Representatives

Abstract

In democracies people have the inalienable right to choose their representatives but this right is sometimes suppressed in the name of ‘national interest’ formed by a particular state ideology which in effect upholds the interests of a particular elite coalition. In such cases the exercise of election becomes rather a mundane process of electing from a monotonous lot of ‘electables’ without a hope for a substantive change towards a pluralistic and tolerant polity. In this context, this paper is an attempt to analyze the eligibility criteria for the members of Parliament in Pakistan as given in the Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan (1973). It seeks to answer the following questions:  How far the required qualifications for the legislators as given in Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan resemble or differ from those established in other democratic systems of the world?  How far Articles 62 and 63 are compatible with Article 25 which establishes the equality of all citizens of Pakistan?  What are the implications of practice of these two articles for the electoral system in Pakistan? The