This supplication is reminiscent of Act 2, scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s drama, measure for measure, which opens with Angelo stating:-We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear birds of prey, and let it prey, and let it keep one shape, till custom make it their perch and not their terror. The above lines create a wonderful emblematic expression of law, its purpose, implementation, and effect. This creates a profound picture of the law as deterrence and people as birds of prey. The mode of elections of the Members’ Senate of Pakistan has remained a debatable point. Revolving around two areas; (l) Members of Senate shall be directly elected or otherwise? (2) Rigging and floor crossing in the electioneering process. The procedure of elections has been provided to ensure the sanctity of the secret ballot, otherwise, if a voter is allowed to put in front of the candidates choice any other visible mark (by the candidate in whose favor the votes have been cast) then it would be sanctity as it would be against the concept of electing representative through secret balloting and if such procedure is allowed to prevail, there would be the purpose of holding the election as then it would become a selection through open balloting, which is not the object of the constitution of law relating to the Election. Article 226 of the Constitution of Pakistan 1973 clearly states that:- “All elections under the Constitution, other than those of the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister, shall be by secret ballot.” The advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 186 can only be invoked if certain preconditions are met like the president must consider that it was desirable to obtain the opinion of the apex court on any question of law, which he considers of public importance. Under the law which is been laid down in the Constitution, the court determines that the reference does not present any real question of law, it may refuse to entertain the reference. In any event, even if the president lawfully invokes the advisory jurisdiction it is still not obligatory for the Supreme Court to render its advice. The separation of powers and independence of the judiciary has been held by the courts as being among the essential features of the constitution. Allowing the government to seek judicial advice before it initiates any executive or legislative action is an exception to the principle of separation of powers. Article 186 (2) must be read in a manner that concords with the essential features of the constitution and the term `shall` used therein is to be read as `may`. The Supreme Court may answer a reference by reporting its opinion that the question posed is not fit, suitable, or ripe for a reply under the advisory jurisdiction. The separation of powers and independence of the judiciary has been held by the courts as being among the essential features of the constitution As such, the secrecy of balloting for general elections too could be abolished merely by promulgating an amending ordinance. Realizing the havoc such an interpretation would have in respect to the sanctity of the electoral process and the implications it would have for voter intimidation/coercion/ undue influence. The government attempted to read the Articles 51 (6) and 106 (3) requirement for a direct and free vote as including a requirement for the secret ballot. Needless to say, the requirement for a direct and free vote does not necessarily mean that the vote is also to be secret. Indeed, in the Indian Constitution, the requirement of the free vote has been held as not necessarily meaning secret vote. It is interesting that while the government wishes to adopt an artificially strained and restrictive interpretation of the words `under the constitution in Article 226 to remove the requirement for secret balloting in respect of Senate elections; it is simultaneously prepared to liberally read words into Article 51 (6) and 106 (3) to introduce a requirement for secret balloting even though it finds no mention there. “The reference is allegedly purposefully designed to thrust the apex court to the forefront of a nakedly political dispute.” The enacting of Article 226 of the Constitution, the legislature intended to include all direct and indirect elections to be held by secret ballot, and if the legislature wanted to oust the indirect elections from the said Article it would have said so either expressly or by sufficient implication, and in the absence of any such ouster clause court cannot interpret the said Article to mean that the indirect election is not covered by Article 226 of the Constitution of Pakistan 1973. As ousted clause exclude the jurisdiction of the court. Article 59 of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, which provides a proportional representation with a single transfer of vote system was adopted to achieve two main objectives one was to have equal representation by all provinces in the upper House and to make it a House of Federation while the second objective was to help and recognize small political parties in provinces based on ethnic and national identity who can find their place in the Upper House and not be left out. However, the same argument was presented 300 years ago in the 5th Resolution in the United States of America, where man), states were represented in Senate having a similar system of proportional representation with a single transfer of vote. However, their experience was not promising to stop buying and selling votes in the election along with other drawbacks in that system. Eventually, after more than a century of a bad experience, they decided in 1913 to bring the l7th amendment in the USA whereby all states were given a right to choose their two Senators from their respective States for the U.S Senate on basis of direct votes and thereby a state was divided into two Senate districts based on proportional population. The Supreme Court should not render its advice since the question posed by the reference is premature, academic, and hypothetical. The court to render the opinion that the requirement for secret ballot in Article 226 of the constitution is fully and squarely applicable to Senate elections under Article 59 of the Constitution. The logical outcome of the interpretation is the Article 226 prescription of secret ballots cannot be applied to the general elections to the National and provincial assemblies. A careful calculation is done based on the party position in the National Assembly and all the four provincial legislatures, which form the constituencies for the elections of the members of the upper house, and keeping in mind the complicated voting system, shows that if all the MPAs vote strictly by the party policy during the elections, then the country is going to have a completely hung Senate as both the ruling and opposition alliances are expected to have almost exactly the equal number of seats. The ruling party will need the support of both allies and opposition for legislation. The writer is Legal Practitioner and columnist. He tweets @legal_bias can be reached at shahrukhmehboob4 @gmail.com