ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Monday passed a bill regarding the salaries, allowances and perks of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) members, which were being drawn without legal cover since 2011.

Before the passage of the 18th Amendment in 2010, four sitting judges — one from each province — used to be picked for appointment as members of the ECP.

After the appointment of retired high court judges as ECP members in 2011, there was an understanding among political parties that they should draw salaries equivalent to the high court judges.

But both the previous PPP government and the incumbent PML-N had failed to get the required legislation passed after the passage of the 18th Amendment, which repealed the law that used to govern the salaries of ECP members.

Payments over past five years have been made provisionally

Bypassing the finance ministry, the ECP had asked the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP) to provisionally disburse salaries to ECP members and the practice continued until the expiry of their five-year term in June this year.

The salary package of each ECP member comes to around Rs800,000 million, including a salary of Rs527,270, judicial allowances worth Rs207,207 and house rent to the tune of Rs65,000. This means an amount of around Rs192 million had been received by ECP members in absence of any legislation to this effect.

The Members, Election Commis­sion (Salary, Allowances, Perks and Privileges) Bill 2016 was moved by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmad and passed by the house, amidst criticism from the opposition benches.

When the speaker put the bill to a vote, opposition members opposed it with a big “No”. Dr Shireen Mazari of the PTI sought a vote-count, which momentarily panicked the treasury benches, who tried to bring in all ruling party lawmakers present in the galleries. Upon counting, it emerged that 72 members of the treasury benches had voted for the bill. But when the speaker once again asked for a vote, nobody stood up to oppose the law, knowing that the opposition was in no position to defeat the bill.

Dr Mazari was one of those who vociferously opposed the bill, saying that it was a mockery of parliament. “To me the passage of the bill is tantamount to justifying murder,” she said.

PPP parliamentary leader Syed Naveed Qamar said that although passing this law after paying salaries to ECP members was legally anomalous, it was the only way to settle the matter once for all.

A Senate committee had shot down a proposed bill to provide legal cover to salaries of ECP members in April, sending it back to the National Assembly to clarify how and why it had been declared a money bill.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2016