General elections: Tribunals may miss 120-day deadline

Courts have disposed of only 65 cases out of 339.

ISLAMABAD:

Election tribunals set up to resolve complaints related to the May 11 polls are unlikely to complete their task within the legally stipulated timeframe of 120 days.  

A total of 339 complaints were filed with the tribunals by contestants after the general elections. The last date of filing a complaint was July 6, 120 days after which the courts should have resolved all the cases.

However, according to Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), the tribunals had disposed of only 65 post election complaints by September 30. Most of these cases were disposed of on technical grounds.

ECP officials say that legal time of 120 days starts when a case is referred to the tribunal. Since the contesting candidates had to file their complaints by July 6 — within 45 days of the polling — the stipulated timeframe of all the tribunals would expire by November 6.

The officials stated that there might be a few cases pending with the ECP before they were referred to the tribunals for the hearing, however, number of such cases will be few.



Data released by FAFEN states that out of the filed complaints, 37 challenged the nomination process, and 82 disputed the qualification of the winning candidates. Of 339 complaints filed by the contestants, 194 made allegations of corrupt or illegal practice by people other than the returned candidate and 220 directly accused the winning candidate of being involved in corrupt or illegal practice to sway the results of the polls.

Moreover, 179 petitions sought disqualification of the winning candidate and the petitioner to be declared as the winning candidate instead. Another called for a re-poll in the constituency. The counting of ballot papers for the entire or parts of a constituency were sought in 67 petitions. Thirty-five petitions wanted a re-examination of the votes declared invalid, while 48 petitions sought re-polling at certain polling stations. As many as 38 petitions sought reliefs other than the five categories identified above.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had notified the 14 tribunals in all the provinces on May 22 to hear post-election complaints. It was for the first time that retired judges from the respective high courts were appointed to head these tribunals. Just before the general elections an Amendment was made in the Constitution to fix the 120 day period.

Prior to this system, serving High Court judges were to hear post-election matters. This was changed since the burden of regular work often caused delay.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2013.