22 July 2004	Thursday	04 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

ISLAMABAD, July 21: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) has criticized the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for not holding a draw to determine the retirement of the Senate members in the first three years.

Talking to Dawn here on Wednesday, ARD parliamentary secretary Izhar Amrohvi alleged that Article 59(3) of the Constitution was constantly being violated by the ECP by not holding the draw despite the passage of 16 months as first session of the Senate was held on March 12, 2003.

According to Article 59(3), he said, half of the members of the Senate were required to retire "after expiration of first three years" and others "after the expiration of the next three years."

To fulfil this constitutional requirement, Mr Amrohvi said, the EC was supposed to conduct a draw under the Senate Election Act 1975 in a "reasonable time". He further said the Supreme Court of Pakistan had defined the term "reasonable time" as "90 days". Therefore, he said, the EC was bound to hold the draw by June 12, 2003.

Talking about the complications due to this "negligence" of the EC, Mr Amrohvi said none of the members knew that for how much time they had been elected the senators.

Moreover, he said, it was given in the Constitution that if a member was elected on a seat, which had fallen vacant due to the death of any member or due to any other reason, the elected member would remain senator for the remaining term of the member, who had vacated the seat.

He said Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani died in November 2003, and it was still not known whether Mr Noorani had been elected for a period of three years or six years and what would be the term of the member elected on his seat.