Custodians of Senate and National Assembly warn that they will use their discretionary powers to nominate the members for appointments with Election Commission if the parliamentary committee fails to development consensus today.
ISLAMABAD: (Urdu Point/Pakistan Point News-Dec 3rd, 2019) In a clear warning, Senate Chairman and National Assembly Speaker have said that they will use their discretionary powers and finalize the Names of the members from Sindh and Balochistan if the parliamentary committee fails to develop consensus on the makeup of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday (today).
The custodian of both upper houses made this warning after Islamabad High Court chief Justice Athar Minallah on a petition moved by parliamentary committee members from the PML-N challenging appointments, observed that: “the chairman of the Senate and the speaker of the National Assembly hold their respective offices as politically impartial personalities. They as custodians of the two respective houses of Majlis-i-Shoora are expected to play an effective role to ensure that the Constitution is upheld and the Election Commission of Pakistan, one of the most important constitutional bodies, is constituted in accordance with the intent of the Constitution makers,”. The IHC CJ also observed that the court was confident that custodians of both houses will amicably resolve the issue without interference by this court,”.
Referring to the court observations on the subject matter, Senate Chairperson Sadiq Sanjrani and National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar said that they would use their powers/discretion and send the names to the president for making up the ECP if the parliamentary committee failed to evolve consensus.
Chairing a meeting at Parliament House, both custodians hoped that the matter would be resolved amicably. They also hoped that parliamentary committee would deliberate on the names proposed by PM Imran Khan and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif for appointment of CEC and other election commissioners in Sindh and Balochistan.
The positions of ECP members from Sindh and Balochistan have been lying vacant since the retirement of Abdul Ghaffar Soomro and Justice (retd) Shakeel Baloch in January.
Under the law, the slots are required to be filled within 45 days under the law, but the deadline passed without the mandatory consultation between the prime minister and the opposition leader. Though indirect consultation started, but a row erupted after President Arif Alvi unilaterally appointed both PTI’s nominees – Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui (Sindh) and Munir Ahmed Kakar (Balochistan) – against the positions on Aug 22—but the same were challenged by the Parliamentary Committee from PML-N.
