ISLAMABAD, Oct 17: Acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani revealed on Wednesday that the national judicial policy making committee headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was considering a request for allowing appointment of judicial officers as district returning officers and returning officers in the next general election.
“The first thing I did after taking over as acting chief election commissioner was writing a letter to the chief justice, requesting him that the judiciary be given a one-time exemption from the bar on performing election duties,” he told participants of events of the first voters’ education day arranged by the Election Commission.
Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim has gone to India to attend a conference there.
The purpose of observing the voters’ education day is to mobilise all adults to obtain computerised national identity cards and ensure that they are enlisted in the electoral rolls — setting an ambitious target of taking the turnout in the upcoming polls to 88 per cent. Justice Jillani said his request was under ‘active consideration’ of the chief justice and the national judicial policy making committee. He said the committee had decided not to spare judicial officers for election duties to clear backlog of cases pending in courts, but stressed that it was not an inflexible decision.
The commission decided to write to the chief justice after representatives of several political parties demanded the appointment of session judges as returning officers.
Justice Jillani noted that the situation surrounding voter participation had never been exemplary in Pakistan. The highest turnout of 52 per cent was recorded in the 1977 elections. And it was 44 per cent in the 2008 polls.
He said the commission had started adopting out-of-the-box approaches to improve the turnout and there were several areas where a lot of efforts were being made to introduce reforms.
Justice Jillani particularly referred to a five-year strategic plan formulated by the commission with the active engagement of major political parties, the civil society and other stakeholders. The plan was described as a ‘role model’ by election management bodies in the Saarc, he added.
He said the commission was planning to train over 600,000 polling staff.
About the voters’ education campaign, he said the commission had decided to reach out to all eligible Pakistanis — irrespective of their gender, race, religious affiliation and physical differences — so that they could actively contribute to the growth and advancement of democracy.
EC’s Acting Secretary Mohammad Afzal Khan said the number of polling stations would be enhanced and efforts would be made to set them up preferably at a walking distance from the voters’ houses.
He said that all those who had obtained the computerised national identity cards on attaining the age of 18 were being enrolled as voters. The number of voters might soar to 90 million if elections were held after March next year.