The main opposition party of Pakistan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has filed a petition this Wednesday before the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the state of emergency declared last week in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and against the new governor appointed by Islamabad.
The president of the PTI, lawyer Gohar Ali Khan, has requested the high court to declare unconstitutional the decision made on Sunday by the federal government, which justified the measure due to the worsening security situation and the resurgence of terrorist activity in this border region with Afghanistan.
In his writing, the lawyer asks the court to annul the state of emergency considering it "unconstitutional, excessive, (...) tainted with malice both in law and in fact, lacking objective foundation and without any legal effect."
The petition, published by the Pakistani newspaper 'Dawn', names the central Executive — through the ministries of Justice, Interior, and Defense — and the authorities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the new chief minister, Faisal Karim Kundi, who has assumed provincial command on behalf of the federal government.
Gohar Ali Khan questions the "constitutionality, legality, and competence" of the decision from Islamabad, as well as the deployment of Pakistani troops in the province and "all executive orders, notifications, and consequent and derived bodies" created from that declaration.
Among the contested decisions is the eleven-member technocratic council established to advise Kundi in the management of the territory, in addition to the "arbitrary" detention of the former chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sohail Afridi.
The filing of the petition comes in a context of increasing confrontation between the federal government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and the PTI, the party of the imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan.
The border strip between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been experiencing a situation of instability for years, marked especially by attacks from Pakistani Taliban and by Islamabad's accusations against India and Afghan Taliban for their alleged support of this group, claims rejected by both New Delhi and Kabul.