PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan on Friday refused to administer oath to two members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notified by the government a day earlier, maintaining that the appointments were made in violation of the constitution.
The election commissioner has informed the parliamentary affairs ministry about his decision.
In his letter to the ministry, the CEC wrote that the new members were not appointed in accordance with Articles 213 and 214 of the constitution.
In response, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Azam Swati expressed his disappointment over the election commissioner’s move, saying that the ECP was one of the country’s most important institutions and it was necessary to fill the vacant slots.
“The government notified the appointment of the two ECP members in line with procedure laid out in the constitution,” he maintained.
“We are sure that there won’t be any crisis and the process of appointing the ECP members would be completed soon,” he added.
The appointments have attracted the opposition’s ire.
Pakistan Peoples Party senior leader Senator Raza Rabbani said the government had unilaterally appointed its own recommended candidates in violation of the constitution.
The parliamentary affairs ministry notified the appointment of Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui and Munir Ahmed Kakar as ECP members from Sindh and Balochistan respectively after President Arif Alvi’s approval. The names of both the members were recommended by the government.
The appointments came seven months after Abdul Ghaffar Soomro and Justice (retd) Shakeel Baloch — the ECP members from Sindh and Balochistan — retired in January this year. Under the law, their successors should have been appointed within 45 days of their retirement.
The prime minister and the opposition leader in the National Assembly were supposed to consult each other within the deadline to reach a consensus on the new members.
However, after the deadline expired, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi proposed the names of Dr Salahuddin Mengal, Mahmud Raza Khan and Raja Aamir Abbasi from Balochistan and Mohammad Nadeem Qureshi, Abdul Rasool Memon, and Noorul Haq Qureshi from Sindh.
When the opposition expressed its reservations over the involvement of the foreign ministry in the matter, the prime minister proposed the names of Amanullah Baloch, Munir Kakar and Naveed Jan Baloch from Balochistan and Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui, Farrukh Zia and Shaikh Iqbal Mehmood from Sindh.
In response, opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif wrote a letter to the government accusing it of violating Article 215(4) of the Constitution by delaying the process of appointment of the ECP members. He recommended the names of senior lawyer Khalid Javed, Justice (retd) Abdul Rasul Memon and Justice (retd) Noorul Haq Qureshi from Sindh and Salahuddin Mengal, Shah Muhammad Jatoi and Rauf Atta from Balochistan.
A bipartisan 12-member parliamentary committee on the appointment of ECP members considered six names – three each proposed by the government and the opposition leader.
However, the last meeting it held over a month ago ended in a stalemate.
The opposition said the government did not send the names proposed by the PM and included those forwarded by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
He claimed that owing to a lack of unity in the government, the old names were withdrawn and new names were forwarded. The opposition was of the view that consultation be held on the old names instead of the new names.
The parliamentary committee with a minimum of a two-thirds majority selects one name out of the six names. However, there is no procedure laid out as to what should be done if deadlock persists over the proposed names in the parliamentary committee.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ