ISLAMABAD: Election Committee of Pakistan (ECP) is seeking amendments to the 2017 Electoral Law that would allow election monitoring bodies to announce voting dates unilaterally, without the need to consult the president.
Request for amendments were made in Letters written by Chief Electoral Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and ETUC Secretary Omar Hamid Khan to Prime Minister’s Chief Secretary Dr. Syed Taukir Hussain Shah, Parliamentary Affairs Secretary Muhammad Shakeel Malik, National Assembly Speaker Raja Perwaiz Ashraf and Senate President Sadiq Sanjrani on Monday.
The letters spoke of “differences” over assembly elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. ECP officials specifically cited two Supreme Court (SC) decisions. in this is the connection released on March 1 and April 4.
In its judgment of March 1, the Supreme Court ruled that the elections in KP and Punjab – both of who have been under provisional government since the dissolution of the provincial assemblies in January – should be held within 90 days.
However, after EP announced in March that election in Punjab to be delayed until October, SC makes different decision on April 4, announcing the commission decision “unconstitutional” and fixing May 14 as the date for polls in provinces.
In their letters today, EKP officials argued that, according to the Constitution, the commission is the “sole arbiter” to decide whether the circumstances for an election exist or not, and this mandate is “not subject to any authority.”
Decisions of the Supreme Court of March 1 and April 4, on on the other hand, “removed the commission of its constitutional authority to determine whether environment in facts and circumstances exist for behavior of elections in certain time to meet the mentioned standards in Article 218(3)”. of Constitution, the letters say.
They also stated that, under Article 218(3), the KEK was required to “organize and conduct elections and take such measures as are necessary to ensure that elections are fair, fair, just and in correspondence with law and that corrupt practices are protected against”.
ESP officials also lamented that, although the institution “consistently sought to of law, fair play and merit in letter and spirit”, these “exemplary efforts” were not supplemented, and, rather, its “essence was systematically challenged on several cases”.
“In practice, the authority of the CEP has been undermined,” the letters say.
Complaint that the disciplinary proceedings initiated by KEK in connection with by-elections were held in Dasha in 2021 were set aside, ECP officials stated that “the prescription of ECP has been seriously compromised.”
In addition, EKP officials also took exclusion from issuance of stay orders in contempt case filed by election observers dog.
And ‘there are many other incidents of judicial power”, which “weakened the writ of ESP,” their letters said.
They questioned it in such a situation, can the commission perform his duty hold free and fair elections in the environment and whether administrative officials, political representatives and other institutions took the commission was serious and attached importance to her instructions.
“And finally, you can in such conditions, through administrative officials and other institutions, it possible hold elections in Punjab and KP and then main elections in in an efficient and transparent manner,” they argued.
