Islamabad: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has requested the Parliament to pass legislation empowering it to fix a date for elections suggesting amendments to Sections 57 (1) and 58 of the Elections Act, 2017.
In two separate detailed letters to National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja on Monday wrote that the conduct of elections is dependent upon the necessary arrangements that are to be made by the ECP to ensure that the standards of honesty, justness, fairness provided in Article 218(2) are met.
The ECP seeks the power to declare and change the election schedule at any time without outside interference under the proposed revisions.
“The Commission, under the Constitution, is the sole arbiter to decide as to whether conducive circumstances exist to conduct the elections or not. This mandate is not subordinate to any authority,” the letters read.
The move by the ECP came apparently in opposition to the Supreme Court’s verdict in which the apex court directed the ECP to hold polls in Punjab on May 14, rejecting its decision to postpone elections till October.
Referring to the judgments of March 1 and April 5 of the apex court, the ECP said that they divested it of its constitutional powers to determine whether a conducive environment in facts and circumstances, exists for the conduct of polls in a given time, to meet the standards mentioned in Article 218(3).
The letters mention that the Supreme Court while interpreting Article 224(2), held that the conduct of general elections within 90 days was a constitutional imperative.
He argued that the writ of the ECP had systematically been challenged on several occasions. “In practice, ECP’s authority has been eroded,” he remarked.
