Local govt elections: Top court wants polls held by September

Asks Election Commission of Pakistan to draw up fresh schedule today after rejecting earlier plan

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court has given the poll supervisory body exactly a day to draw up a new schedule for local government elections after a three-member bench spurned the schedule shared with it on Wednesday. The bench insisted the LG elections be held in Sindh and Punjab no later than September 2015.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had proposed that LG polls be held in cantonment areas on May 16, and three weeks later in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on June 7. But clearly its suggestion that the LG elections be conducted in Punjab on February 20, 2016 and in Sindh on March 20, 2016 raised hackles.



“This schedule is not satisfactory,” said the three-judge bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, in a short order issued at 9:30pm on Wednesday. The bench also said it would be appropriate if the polling dates for Punjab and Sindh were moved up by at least four months, proposing a September 2015 cutoff date for the elections.

“Each day’s delay is pushing back the process of people’s empowerment,” Justice Khawaja observed.

Earlier, in the afternoon, the bench directed ECP Acting Secretary Sher Afgan and Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Salman Aslam Butt to submit an LG polls schedule before 8pm. The bench reassembled at 8:00pm and the hearing continued until 9:30pm.

The court also sought from the ECP details of the steps it has taken to hold LG polls following the March 19, 2014 judgment of the top court, wherein the commission was directed to hold the elections by November 15, 2014.

“We have heard the case on a day-to-day basis because the foundation of democratic dispensation appears to have been disregarded by the constitutional functionaries,” the bench said in its order.

Over the last 24 months, the court said, it had repeatedly been directing the ECP as well as the federal and provincial authorities to conduct the LG polls but its instructions had not been followed.



During the hearing, the acting ACP secretary and AGP appeared before the bench. They said that they had consulted all commission members before submitting the LG polls schedule. The bench raised objections to the schedule and asked the ECP to justify dates set for different stages of the electoral process.

The ECP secretary pointed out that the commission required at least three months to procure ballot papers as 440 million ballot papers needed to be printed for the exercise in Punjab and Sindh. But the bench rebuked him over his stance. “Why does the ECP not start procurement of ballot papers now?” the judges said, adding that the ECP was not performing its duties well enough.

Only five officials in the 2,280-srong commission are supposed to hold the LG elections, Afgan said. “And there is no law to hold LG elections in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).” To this, AGP Butt added that a bill approved by the cabinet is pending in the parliament.

The bench observed that the matter related to the LG polls in ICT will be taken up on March 10. The bench said after the passage of 18th constitutional amendment, it is the duty of the ECP to hold LG polls and the top court, in its judgment, has also given authority to the commission to start the process of elections under existing laws. “The ECP is a creature of the Constitution. It has the constitutional mandate to hold LG polls,” it added.

If the Constitution, Afgan stated, is interpreted then it will be easy for the commission to hold LG polls.

When the court pointed out its 2013 judgment wherein it was mentioned that the ECP is authorised to hold LG polls on existing law, Afgan requested the bench to give him some time for placing that judgment before the commission.

Afgan, however, expressed apprehension that if the LG polls were held in the cantonment areas under the existing law, then the process would be challenged in superior courts.

He also said time would be required to update the electoral rolls and the commission was transferring the system for the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for this purpose. In K-P, 35 days would be required to update the electoral lists, he added.

Upon this, the bench asked the ECP secretary as to why the commission had not started the process as it was their obligation to revise the electoral rolls annually. “You are not performing your duty. Why have you not revised the electoral lists annually?” asked Justice Khawaja.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2015.