Local govt polls ECP's constitutional responsibility: SC

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday wrapped up two petitions raised by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding holding local government elections.

The apex court ruled that according to article 140-A holding local government elections is the constitutional responsibility of the election commission. The Supreme Court ordered that the election commission will decide the dates of the local government election.

Observing that the local government elections have not been held in the Punjab and Sindh for six years, the apex court remarked that the ECP is not supposed to request for dates from the provinces but rather issue orders to the provinces.

During the hearing Justice Qazi Faiz Issa remarked, that one constitutional entity is asking another constitutional entity to permit violation of the constitution, and the constitutional entity is responding that it is unable to perform its duty. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan is fully determined and earnestly considering the matter of Pakistani citizenship holding expatriates their basic right to vote.

An incorrect impression has been created in a section of press that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is backtracking of its plan for giving the right to vote to Pakistanis living overseas, said spokesman of the ECP.

For this purpose, the Election Commission has already constituted a high-level Committee under the supervision of Mr. Masood Malak, ADG Elections that includes; inter alia, two Members of the National Assembly i-e Mr. Arif Alvi and Dr. Tariq Fazal Choudhry, he added. He further added that the Committee studied and examined the feasibility of different options for facilitating voting by the Overseas Pakistanis through Postal Ballot,Internet Voting and Voting etc.

The Committee has so far conducted sixteen meetings and discussed all the legal and technical issues/provisions about various possibilities of providing the voting right to overseas Pakistan, he claimed.

Resultantly, sixteen different recommendations have been finalized and forwarded to the Election Commission that are being deliberated thoroughly.

On the other hand, the Election Commission has once again asked the Political Parties who have not submitted their statement of party accounts to submit their accounts details by August

In-person 29. Political parties have to submit details of accounts to under the provisions of Article 13 of the Political Parties Order, 2002 which provides that every political party shall submit to the Election Commission, within 60 days from the close of each financial year, a consolidated statement of accounts of the party, duly audited by a Chartered Accountant. Spokesman of ECP said that the prescribed printed Forms are available free of cost in the Election Commission Secretariat, Islamabad and in the offices of Provincial Election Commissioners, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.