ISLAMABAD: After a late-night hearing, the Sup­reme Court on Wednesday again rejected the election schedule presented by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for local government elections in all 43 cantonment boards and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh.

The commission was ord­ered to re-submit a revised schedule by Thursday morning — the same day it is conducting the much anticipated Senate elections.

After a long hearing earlier in the day, a three-judge ben­ch headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja had directed ECP Additional Secretary Sher Afgan and the attorney general’s office to sit together and come up with the final schedule for local elections by 8pm on Wednesday.

The directions were issued despite repeated requests by Sher Afgan to grant the commission more time since he was supposed to officiate as returning officer the next day and had to make arrangements to conduct the Senate elections in Islamabad.

After deliberations held in the AG office inside the Supreme Court building, the commission had proposed May 16, 2015 as polling day for local government elections in the cantonment boards, on old electoral rolls from 2013. The ECP also proposed June 7 as the date for LG elections in KP and suggested that elections in Punjab and Sindh be held over three phases on Jan 16, Feb 10 and March 26 next year.

ECP secretary, AG asked to come up with election dates

The commission also asked for time to induct four million new voters by updating the electoral rolls for Sindh and Punjab and print 440 million ballot papers for the two provinces.

But the Supreme Court was not amused and asked why the commission was sitting idle. The court declared the proposed dates unsatisfactory and asked the commission to justify the delay in holding the elections.

The Supreme Court wanted the commission to squeeze the dates by completing the delimitation process of wards in Punjab and Sindh by July, while the elections should positively be held in the first week of September.

When Advocate M. Bilal talked about holding local government elections in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), the ECP secretary explained that there was no law in place to hold elections in the capital and that the process of delimitation and development of electoral rolls was yet to be done.

But the AG told the court that the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Defence had recently approved a proposed bill which was likely to be adopted by the house in the forthcoming session.

The court noted that the proposed bill provided for the manner of holding elections in ICT and ordered ECP to commence forthwith the process of holding elections in the capital as well as submitting the bill before the court on March 10.

It also tasked the commission to submit a comprehensive report highlighting actions taken by it after the court’s March 19, 2014 judgment in which the ECP had been vested with the authority to conduct the delimitation of wards in provinces.

In its order, the court observed that holding the local government elections was of utmost significance, since it was the command of the Constitution under Article 140A, incorporated through the 18th Amendment in April 2010 that requires the provinces to devolve political, financial and administrative responsibilities by establishing local governments to empower the people at the grass-root level.

The command of the Constitution has not been fulfilled except in Balochistan.

The court also regretted that it had been seized with the matter for the past couple of years and had repeatedly ordered the commission and the provincial governments to conduct local government elections, but to no avail.

It noted that it had been hearing the case since Thursday last on a day-to-day basis but the very foundation of the democratic dispensation appeared to be disregarded by the constitutional functionaries who had been mandated by the Constitution.

Published in Dawn March 5th , 2015

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