KARACHI: Among the 54 proposed amendments to the Elections Act, 2017, the key change is about the mandate of the caretaker set-up empowering it to take economic decisions and allowing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to initiate criminal proceedings against electoral staff if any of them is found negligent in their election duties.

The proposed amendments were recently shared with lawmakers before being tabled in the parliament.

In an amendment to Section 230 of the Elections Act, the draft has proposed insertion of new sub-section 2A which redefines the mandate of the caretaker government in the country broadening its scope of functioning that include authority to take decisions for the “economic interests of Pakistan”.

“(2A) Sub-sections (1) and (2) shall not apply whenever circumstances exist which render it expedient for the care taker government to take such actions or decisions necessary for the purposes of protection of economic interests of Pakistan dealing with bilateral and multilateral agreements with the international institutions and the foreign governments, including continuation and conclusion of, projects initiated under the Public-Private Partnership Authority Act, 2017 (VIII of 2017), the Inter-Gover­nmental Commercial Transactions Act, 2022 (XXX of 2022) and the Privatisation Commission Ordinance, 2000 (LII 0f2000),” proposes the document titled “The Election Amendment Bill 2020 — List of Amendments.”

In its 9th proposal, the document suggested the amendment that would allow the ECP to initiate criminal proceedings against the electoral staff in case of any negligence.

Also two new subsections 8 and 9 have been proposed for addition to Section 55. The proposed sub-section 8 says: “The Commission may appoint Enquiry Officers or Enquiry Committee to initiate and finalise proceedings under the efficiency and discipline rules applicable to the election ofcials concerned against whom action has been taken by the Commission under sub-section (3) or other provisions of this Act or by the Returning Officer under sub-section (6) of section 54.”

Similarly, the proposed sub-section 9 elaborates: “Apart from disciplinary proceedings, the commission may also initiate criminal proceedings under section 188 read with section 184 against the concerned election officials, public servants or other persons in service of Pakistan mentioned in sub-section (3).”

Funding, results

While the current law demands the parties to share the names with the ECP of those donors who in their election campaigns contribute “an amount equal to or more than one hundred thousand rupees”, the proposed amendment in sub-section of the Section 211 now gives a relief to the parties as they can only share the names of those donors who contribute “an amount equal to or more than one million rupees”.

For swift compilation of the results and their quick transmission, the amendment binds the electoral staff for certain and immediate measures. In Section 13 of the Act, the draft proposed a new sub-section 2 related with the compilation of the election results.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2023