LAHORE, Jan 31: Insisting that the appointment of four provincial election commissioners is unconstitutional, Pakistan Awami Tehrik chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri has urged the chief election commissioner to preserve the entire procedural record to prevent tampering.
“We have finally decided to challenge appointments of the ECP provincial members by filing a writ petition in the Supreme Court. We will move court also to get stopped use of billions of rupees as the prime minister and the chief ministers’ discretionary funds ahead of the general election,” he told a press conference on Thursday.
He said the PAT would separately file petitions in a day or two and he would himself argue his petitions in the apex court. “As the prime issue is to reconstitute the ECP and not dissolve it, we will argue this case on the grounds of the parliamentary committee’s unconstitutional procedure adopted for the members’ appointment,” he said.
He said since the constitution provided the requisite procedure for the appointment of the ECP members, the president, the prime minister or the parliamentary committee couldn’t ignore this.
He criticised the recent statements of some politicians claiming unavailability of candidate for elections under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, saying they were considering the 180 million people of the country dishonest.
He said his Dec 23 public meeting and Jan 14 long march were beneficial for people as far as awareness about their constitutional rights was concerned.
