Pakistan Supreme Court seeks info on dual citizenship of judges, officials
BY Agencies17 Jan 2018 6:02 PM GMT
Agencies17 Jan 2018 6:02 PM GMT
Islamabad: Pakistan's top court on Wednesday sought details of all serving judges and senior government servants having dual nationalities.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar took suo moto notice of reports that thousands of senior officials and some judges were having nationalities of western countries. The chief justice issued orders to registrars of all five high courts and secretary Establishment Division, which is administrative head of civil servants, to provide names of dual nationals, a court official said. The court had already banned dual nationals from contesting elections in the country.
Officials said that exact number of dual nationals serving in high positions was not known but the number run into thousands. Presently, there is no legal bar on dual nationals on joining civil service or judiciary under The Citizen Act of 1951 or civil service rules.
But concerns have been expressed quite often about the integrity of dual nationals who may come in contact with sensitive information while being in service. It is not clear what action the chief justice would take against dual nationals.
In the past, at least two prime ministers of Pakistan were dual nationals.
Moin Qureshi was caretaker prime minister from July to October in 1993 while Shaukat Aziz served as premier from 2004 to 2007.
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