Retired judges to hear petitions on elections

Tribunals will decide cases within 120 days of a plea being filed.

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan has decided to hire the services of retired district and session judges as election tribunals, to speed up the process of hearing petitions related to elections.

The election tribunals will decide election cases within 120 days of a petition being filed.

As part of its reforms programme, the ECP decided to engage the services of retired judges who will act as election tribunals, a top ECP official said. The commission had asked the registrars of high courts to suggest a panel of names for the tribunals from their respective provinces.

The chief election commissioner and four commissioners – a retired high court judge representing each of the four provinces – selected 10 retired district and session judges from every province from the panel of names nominated by the registrars.

Under the current system, election-related petitions remain pending before the courts for years, and sometimes they are not decided until the term of the respective national and provincial assembly expires.

“Right now we have constituted five tribunals for Punjab and three each for the other three provinces. It will be need-based and the number can be increased if needed. More tribunals can be constituted from the pool of the selected retired judges,” ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan told a select group of reporters.

Khan said these tribunals will act independently but their salaries and office expenses will be borne by the ECP. Under the newly adopted procedure, the selected judges will be hired for one year, which can be extended for another one year.

Meanwhile, a two-day meeting at the ECP headquarters to review the preparedness of the commission and other relevant departments, in case the government calls local bodies or general elections earlier than scheduled, also concluded.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2012.