The Supreme Court has suspended Rehman Malik’s Senate membership for holding dual nationality. He is the second member of parliament after Farahnaz Ispahani to be suspended under Article 63 (1)(c). Though there is no legal bar against Pakistani citizens holding dual nationalities of 13 different countries, Article 63 has been construed as prohibiting the same to an elected member. The issue of loyalty, allegiance and commitment comes into play that could not be compromised in the case of parliament. Malik in his zest to preempt his suspension orders produced incorrect renunciation documents of British citizenship in the court; the SC considers the fee receipt and UK Boarder Agency letter presented by Malik as fake and incomplete. This revelation brought the entire process of renunciation mentioned by Malik into question, suggesting that Malik never renounced British nationality in 2008, making him ultimately ineligible to hold senate membership because he was also a British national when he submitted his nomination papers for the senate election this year. The court also observed that the letter dated June 1 from the UK Border Agency is an acknowledgment letter for receiving a renunciation application from Malik and not a surrender letter. Now by June 13 either Malik surrenders his British nationality or faces disqualification as is inherent in Article 63(1)(c) of the constitution. An intriguing question is whether the ball in this case can be thrown in the court of the Senate Chairman to prevent Mailk’s disqualification as happened in the National Assembly Speaker’s decision in Gilani’s case. There are assumptions that Malik can also be charged for perjury for allegedly producing false affidavits before the court. Besides suspension from the Senate, Malik has automatically been stripped of his ministry. Keeping to their tradition though, the PPP hurriedly made Malik an advisor to the prime minister on internal affairs. The rigmarole has nothing new about it. The issue of dual citizenship, like the issues of tax evasion, asset declaration and money laundering by the parliamentarians had been debated umpteen times. Not to mention past prime ministers like Moeen Qureshi and Shaukat Aziz who actually held dual nationality while in office. The twist in the story is that the Supreme Court, and not the Election Commission of Pakistan, has taken it upon itself to clear the mess. The Election commission holds the domain of verifying candidates for both houses of parliament. If the commission was not doing its core job, and the SC had to intervene to bring it round to it then what had the commission been doing all these years? Candidates should have been screened carefully by the election commission ab initio. It seems all these years the country has been run on a sham system supported by self-styled political arrangements rather than legal/constitutional provisions. The situation reeks of hypocrisy, especially when the SC has issued notices to 14 more federal and provincial lawmakers for holding dual nationalities. Now that the entire house is ablaze with the issue of dual nationality, rumours are that the government is planning to bring another constitutional amendment to strike down the stringent parts of 63 (1)(c). One wonders if this would favour the government in an election year, when the credibility of parliamentarians is already low. On the other hand if the government fails to legislate for the new development, most of the strong candidates of PPP, PML (N) and MQM would be disqualified from contesting elections unless they renounce their other nationality. The government could perhaps evolve a consensus as the issue affects almost all parties. Otherwise further disqualifications of members of parliament could cause a whole series of new headaches across the political class. *