ECP has right to audit political parties’ funds

• CJ says every party has to present its accounts and ECP has to examine according to law
• PTI lawyer says law does not require parliament members to declare their assets
• Justice Bandial says ECP makes accounts public every year for sake of transparency

Akram Sheikh, the lawyer of the Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Hanif Abbasi, said on Monday that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) had submitted fraudulent and incomplete documents before the Supreme Court.

“All the documents submitted by the PTI contained discrepancies,” he informed the three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar, hearing the petition to disqualify PTI leaders Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen for the non-disclosure of assets, ownership of offshore companies, and for PTI being a foreign-aided party.

The PML-N counsel stated that the list of donors provided by the PTI was not available on the website of the Foreign Agents Regulatory Authority (FARA) of the United States. “The PTI has prepared this list itself,” he pointed out. He said that the PTI had received $217,750 from PTI-USA LLC as opposed to $191,913 which was the sum shown in the documents submitted by the party before the court.

“The difference of $98,619 indicates that the documents were forged,” he said. Chief Justice Nisar remarked that the PTI would have to show that it did not accept prohibited funds. “Did the party accept foreign funds? Which forum will investigate the matter of foreign funding? We are hearing this case on the basis of these questions,” he added.

PTI’s lawyer Anwar Mansoor once again referred to the petitioner’s contention that the foreign funds were remitted to the party from prohibited sources, because of names like Jadhav. “Can’t Jadhav be the name of a Pakistani,” he asked. He contended that the Election Commission does not have the jurisdiction to hear cases pertaining to political parties accepting prohibited funds.

According to Section 13 of the Political Parties Order (PPO) 2002, the parties are required to submit the details of their assets before the ECP every year, the lawyer said. However, he said that the ECP could not conduct an audit of the party’s funding.

“If a party receives funds after it has submitted the details of its assets to the ECP, is the commission required to seek out details of the newly acquired funds,” the chief justice asked. Mansoor replied that the law does not say anything on the matter, arguing that the private accounts of a political party cannot be publicised.

“How can a party’s accounts be private?” the chief justice asked in response. The PTI lawyer told the bench that the law does not require the parliament members to declare their assets. “Every year, the ECP makes the accounts public for the sake of transparency,” remarked Justice Umar Ata Bandial, another member of the bench.

According to the law, every party has to present its accounts and the ECP has to examine them, the chief justice said. The bench asked the PTI lawyer if it was true that the records submitted before the courts were not available on the FARA website. “The court has been provided with the list of amounts that have come to Pakistan,” Mansoor told the bench.

The list of donors did not include those who give less than $50, he said. “Should we declare this record bogus on the basis that it was not submitted to FARA,” the chief justice asked. Justice Bandial said that the lawyer was attempting to argue that the objectionable amounts had been spent abroad; whereas the funds that came to Pakistan were legal.

“This means that to some extent prohibited funds were accepted,” the judge said. The hearing was adjourned until Tuesday (today). Last week, the PTI had submitted before the bench its overseas financial accounts, letters regarding fund-raising and accounting policies, internal and external audit controls, PTI by-laws, as well as a funds from PTI-USA LLC.