ECP in a fix: Term of 5 tribunals ends tomorrow

LHC refuses to share burden of pending complaints

ISLAMABAD/ LAHORE:

Election authorities are in a fix over another extension for post-election tribunals, as the ‘final’ extended term of the remaining five tribunals ends on August 31 (tomorrow). Extending the tribunals’ term for two months on June 30, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced that it would not give the remaining five tribunals further extension.

Earlier this week, the ECP had written to the chief justices of the high courts, requesting the judiciary to nominate judges to hear the post-election cases pending in the tribunals. However, the Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice on Saturday dismissed the petition filed by the chief election commissioner.

The petitioner had requested the court to appoint three LHC judges in the tribunals so that the pending cases could be decided. However, saying that only retired district and sessions judges could be appointed as tribunal judges, the LHC chief justice turned down the request.

An official of the ECP’s law wing told : “In such a situation we will have no other option but to continue with the same tribunals.”

Around 18 cases are still pending in the tribunals. On almost half of these cases there is a stay order from the high courts, due to which ECP officials say they could not predict when the tribunals’ work would conclude.

After the 2013 general elections the ECP had formed 14 election tribunals – five in Punjab and three each in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) – to adjudicate the post-election complaints.

Set up on June 3, 2013 for a maximum period of one year, these tribunals were supposed to decide a petition within 120 days after a case was sent to them for adjudication.

To expedite disposal of the cases, the ECP, for the first time, experimented with tribunals led by retired judges. These judges were appointed for a full-time job with all the perks and privileges equal to those of the high court judges.

Before the 2013 polls, serving high court judges used to hear such complaints. Due to the workload of routine cases, these judges took longer to decide election complaints.

In many instances, poll complaints remained pending in these tribunals led by serving judges until the term of the assemblies expired, making the whole exercise futile.

By the end of this June, more than two years after the general elections, all tribunals that disposed of their cases were dissolved, except three in Punjab and one each in Sindh and K-P when the last extension was announced.

A day earlier Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan had criticised the ECP over not extending the term of the Punjab tribunals, terming it ‘collusion between the ECP and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)’.

Meanwhile, PML-N MNA Malik Riaz expressed no confidence in Kazim Malik, who is not only hearing a petition against the MNA but had also unseated now former National Assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq from NA-122 (Lahore-V) on August 22. In a TV interview, Kazim Malik accused PML-N leaders of threatening him when he was hearing Sadiq’s case.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2015.