Once bitten twice shy: Sindh High Court turns down ECP’s request

Sources say judicial officers barred from performing administrative tasks

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has turned down the Election Commission of Pakistan’s request to nominate the judicial officers for carrying out the exercise of redrawing the electoral constituencies ahead of the local bodies elections in the province, The Express Tribune learnt on Thursday.

Judicial sources said that the country’s top election body had decided to undertake the process of delimiting the electoral constituencies ahead of the local bodies’ elections. Therefore, it wrote a letter to the SHC Chief Justice Faisal Arab, requesting the services of judicial officers to conduct the delimitation process in each district.

The officials said that the Justice Arab declined the ECP’s request in the light of the national judicial policy in which it was decided that none of the judicial officers would be nominated in the future to carry out the administrative tasks on the requests of the government.

The judiciary had on the request of the ECP given its judicial officers to perform the duties as returning officer during the general elections held in May 2013 by relaxing its own policy just to extend a helping hand to the former Chief Election Commissioner Fakharuddin G Ebrhaim.

However, later it had to face strong criticism from different quarters, particularly the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, over the issue of polls rigging.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2015.