Constitutional right: Prisoners keen to vote in elections

Prisoners asked the CEC and the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the matter.

LAHORE: As many as 48,792 prisoners in 32 jails of the Punjab have asked the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to allow them to vote through postal ballot in the upcoming elections, former Lahore High Court Bar Association president Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry and relatives of some inmates said here on Thursday. They said most prisoners were registered voters and should not be deprived of their constitutional right. They asked the CEC and the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the matter. Punjab Prisons Inspector General Mian Farooq Nazeer said that the department would comply with any decision by the Election Commission in this regard. But he added that most prisoners did not have computerised national identity cards and it would be difficult for the jail superintendent to verify their voter registration.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5^th, 2013.