ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani president on Monday signed into law a bill that limits the disqualification of lawmakers to a period of up to five years, a move that could potentially pave the way for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to return to electoral politics.

Sharif, who has served as Pakistan’s prime minister thrice, was disqualified from office on July 28, 2017, by Pakistan's apex court in a case instigated by the “Panama Papers” leaks that disclosed expensive and undeclared property owned by the Sharif family in London.

Following the verdict, the court also barred Sharif from holding office for life. Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party rejected the verdict, saying the corruption cases against him were "politically motivated."

The National Assembly had a day earlier passed the Election Act Law, limiting the disqualification of a parliamentarian to a maximum of five years. The bill, having already been passed by the Senate, needed to be approved by the president to become law.

Under the new law, disqualification of a person "to be elected, chosen or to remain as a member of the Parliament or provincial assembly under paragraph (f) of clause (1) of Article 62 of the Constitution shall be for a period not exceeding five years from the declaration of the court of law in that regard and such declaration shall be subject to the due process of law."

The development comes as PML-N leaders have said Sharif would return to Pakistan to lead the party before general elections in October. The party has lost a string of by-elections over the past year to former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

After the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from office in 2017, he was convicted in 2018 on corruption charges and sentenced to seven years in jail. In 2019, however, a Pakistani court granted medical bail to the former prime minister and he left for treatment in London in November that year and has since lived there in self-imposed exile.