Attorney General Malik Qayyum said the sentence awarded to the former prime minister was not pardoned but remitted by the president, adding that the stigma of conviction remains.
Qayyum said the sentence of fine and property confiscation would be applicable and (Sharif) is disqualified from contesting the elections.
"The law will take its own course, whenever the petitioners come to Pakistan. A Rs 500 million fine is imposed on Nawaz Sharif in the plane conspiracy case that will be recovered through the confiscation of his property," Qayyum was quoted as saying by the Daily Times newspaper on Friday. The AG said there was a difference between pardon and remission.
If the president grants pardon, the conviction is abolished, but in case of a remission only the imprisonment is taken away and the sentence of fine and the confiscation of property remains intact with the stigma of conviction. Because of this conviction, the AG said, Sharif will be unable to contest the elections, and is rendered disqualified under Article 62 of the Constitution.
However, a former chief justice of Pakistan Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui said that according to Article 45 of the Constitution the cases in which President Musharraf pardoned the former prime minister cannot be reopened nor can the sentences be revived. "Once pardoned after conviction a sentence cant be revived, but if a case is pending then this is a different matter and the Sharif brothers will have to face them in court," Justice (retired) Siddiqui told Geo TV on Thursday.
Former Chief Justice Siddiqui said no person could be disqualified from contesting the elections on the basis of moral turpitude and the hijacking case against Nawaz didn't come under any such condition.
He said a person could only be disqualified from contesting the polls if he got a conviction in a NAB case, and that Nawaz had never been convicted in any such matter.
He said that any person could contest the elections while facing cases in courts. The former premier was sentenced to life imprisonment in a plane hijack conspiracy case. He was charged with hijacking a commercial PIA flight carrying General Musharraf and other passengers from Colombo on October 12, 1999.
In another case, an accountability court sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment on April 6, 2000, after conducting his trial in Attock Fort on the charges of purchasing and misusing an official helicopter.
A Rawalpindi accountability court has recently reopened three accountability references against him. The lawyers of the Sharifs claim that the president had pardoned two major sentences and that a pardon could not be rescinded in any case.
As such the former premier bears no stigma of conviction and is also qualified to contest the elections of the parliament," said lawyer Syed Zafar Ali Shah, a PML-N leader.