ISLAMABAD: As the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms is set to begin review of constitutional provisions, a consensus seems to be emerging among the country’s major political parties that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) should not necessarily be drawn from judiciary.

Interviews with a number of the members of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms belonging to all the mainstream political parties revealed a rare unity in their viewpoint on the issue of changing the eligibility criteria for the CEC.

Presently, the CEC is appointed under Article 213 of the Constitution and its Clause 2 reads as: “No person shall be appointed to be Commissioner unless he is, or has been a judge of the Supreme Court, or he is, or has been a judge of a high court and is qualified under paragraph (a) Clause 2 of Article 177 to be appointed as judge of the Supreme Court.”

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“The CEC should not only be from the judiciary because conducting elections is a huge administrative and management job,” said Dr Arif Alvi of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), when contacted for his comments.

“Judges are not trained to be good managers,” said the PTI leader, adding the past elections had proved this fact. He said the elections were the biggest exercise in which the whole government machinery was involved. Similarly, he said, the elections were the largest exercise in terms of public and resources mobilisation.

Dr Alvi said his party wanted an amendment to the constitution making it binding on the government and the opposition to hold “meaningful consultations” with all the other political parties. Presently, he said, there was no such binding on the prime minister or the leader of the opposition.

Under the constitution, the prime minister is required to forward three names to a parliamentary committee for confirmation of one of them for the appointment as the CEC after consultations with the leader of opposition in the National Assembly.

Shazia Marri of PPP told Dawn that there had been a consensus within the party that the CEC must not be from the judiciary only, and people from other professions should also be considered for this post. She said her party was waiting to see proposals from other parties before coming out with its own concrete proposals.

Former law minister in the PPP regime and former Senate chairman Farooq H. Naek said that the CEC should be “apolitical” person and that he could be from bureaucracy. He, however, said that the PPP was yet to hold internal discussion on the issue so that it could come out with some solid suggestions.

Mr Naek, who is also a member of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, said that he personally believed that there should be no role of political parties in the process of the appointment of the CEC. He was of the view that the CEC’s appointment should be made after an “open public hearing”.

He stressed the need for making the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) an independent and powerful institution. He said recently it had been revealed that Forms 16 which were compiled by returning officers were not even in the possession of the ECP and these forms were in the government’s custody. At least the ECP should have its own store to keep its material, he added.

S. A. Iqbal Qadri of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) agreed to the proposal that the CEC must not be drawn from the judiciary only, saying that conducting polls was a very “tiresome job”. He, however, said that the final decision about the amendments to the relevant constitutional clauses would be taken by the party after a discussion on the matter by the party’s Rabita Committee.

The proposal to change the eligibility criteria for the CEC is also being endorsed by the ruling PML-N.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Barrister Zafarullah Khan, who is assisting the committee of the parliament on electoral reforms, said the PML-N also had the same viewpoint that the eligibility criteria for the CEC should be changed.

He claimed that even a number of serving and retired judges wanted the amendment to change the qualification criteria for the CEC’s appointment.

“Why can’t a civil society member or a human right activist become CEC?” questioned, saying that judges did not have “administrative experience” required to make arrangement for conducting elections in the country.

It may be recalled here that in July last year Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Khurshid Ahmed Shah had suggested to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that the Constitution should be amended to end the present restriction that the CEC should be a retired judge.

Mr Shah had told reporters after his meeting with Mr Sharif that he had suggested that besides retired judges, politicians, senior lawyers and senior bureaucrats should also be eligible to acquire the constitutional office of the CEC.

The CEC was earlier appointed by the president but under Article 213 of the Constitution, the prime minister is now required to forward three names to the parliamentary committee for confirmation of one of them after consultations with the leader of opposition.

A sub-committee of the main parliamentary committee on electoral reforms is scheduled to meet on Friday to start review of the constitutional provisions related to the elections.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2015

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