ECP's no-show at reserved seats hearing irks LHC

Petition wants SC's July 12 seats order enforced

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday expressed its displeasure over non-appearance of any representative of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) during hearing of a plea seeking implementation of the Supreme Court's July 12 order in the PTI reserved seats case.

A single-member bench comprising Justice Raheel Kamran took up the petition filed by Munir Ahmed through his counsel Azhar Siddique. The petition requested the court to direct the ECP to immediately issue a notification regarding allocation of reserved seats to the PTI in the National Assembly as well as provincial legislatures in light of the Supreme Court's majority order.

On July 12, the Supreme Court by a majority of 8 to 5 resurrected the PTI as a parliamentary party as it set aside the ECP's decision not to allocate it reserved seats for women and minorities.

The majority judges issued their detailed order on September 23, stating that the ECP had "failed" to perform its constitutional role as a fundamental "guarantor of democratic processes".

The polls oversight authority, however, once again approached the apex court on September 26 in view of the August 6 amendments to the country's election law—the Election Act, 2017—which put new hurdles in the way of the PTI to get the reserved seats.

As proceedings commenced on Friday, the petitioner's counsel argued that despite a clear judgment of the eight judges of the Supreme Court, the ECP has not issued yet any notification regarding reserved seats which is tantamount to committing contempt of court.

He said the ECP is not implementing the decision as directed under Article 189 of the Constitution for which Article 204 is already in place and at the same time, the LHC has the jurisdiction in view of Article 187(2) of the Constitution to implement the decision or to enforce it.

The lawyer also referred to the letters sent to the ECP by speakers of the National Assembly, the Punjab Assembly and the Sindh Assembly seeking implementation of the amended Election Act, 2017 adding that in view of these letters the matter needs to be decided at the earliest.

He said the speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also sent a letter to the ECP requesting it to implement the SC judgement in letter and spirit.

He contended that soon after passing of the order, a representation was made by the ECP as well as to all the speakers of the National Assembly and two provincial legislatures. He said since the SC judgment has not been implemented, contempt of court is committed both by the ECP and the speakers.

Justice Kamran expressed his displeasure over both non-submission of a response by the ECP as well as non-appearance of any representatives on its behalf. Directing the ECP to submit its response, the court adjourned till October 4.