The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday directed Attorney General (AG) Irfan Qadir to devise a mechanism for awarding voting rights to overseas Pakistanis with the help of IT experts saying no legislation was necessary to grant expatriates the right to vote.
Appearing before the apex court, Qadir said it was impossible to adopt procedures for electronic voting in the upcoming elections. “Such a voting system has failed in several countries,” he said, adding that IT experts could create a software for the purpose but it would take at least a year.
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Director General (DG) Sher Afgan said overseas Pakistanis could not be awarded the right to vote without proper legislation.
Chief Justice (CJ) Chaudhry Iftikhar proposed this could be done by using a computer desk in Pakistani missions. The DG said most Pakistanis do not live near Pakistani missions.
To this the CJ said, “You provide the facility and leave it to overseas Pakistanis to choose if they want to vote.”
In its order, the SC said there was no need for legislation and an ordinance would be enough to get the job done.
The court also showed annoyance over non-implementation of its decision in the electoral reforms case.
During hearing the counsel for ECP Munir Paracha said the decision on electoral reforms was being fully implemented and ECP was taking further measures in this regard.
The court however, said the EC P is not acting on the verdict. The court said it would have been better if Paracha had presented a report on the implementation of the court verdict.
A Jamat-e-Islami (JI) official told the court that ECP did not execute the court orders claiming that the home-to-home verification of voters’ list in Karachi was not transparent and army officials did not accompany ECP teams during the verification process.
The court said several people have apprehensions on the process of verification of voters’ rolls in Karachi but added it was not the court’s job to review each and every case. The court adjourned the case for two weeks and ordered the ECP to ensure implementation of electoral reforms.
