The National Assembly on Tuesday passed the much awaited historic Election Reforms Bill 2017 with majority vote, aimed at giving additional powers to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for ensuring credible polls.
The House also adopted 44 out of 105 amendments proposed by the opposition parties Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan People’s Party parliamentarians, rejecting the rest as the opposition parties were not ready to withdraw the same.
During the discussion, the House was informed that a 33-member Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms headed by Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar was formed by the government in 2014. The committee drafted the bill after deliberations and consultations for more than two years. Total 118 meetings were held, 25 by the main committee and 93 by sub-committees under the chairmanship of Zahid Hamid and Dr Arif Alvi.
During the comprehensive consultation process, political parties in the parliament and public at large presented various proposals. The parliamentary committee finalised the Election Reforms Bill 2017 unifying eight different laws. In the bill, new measures have been proposed in different areas of electioneering to give more powers to the ECP for holding of free, fair and transparent elections in the country.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid said after tabling of the Election Bill in the House, the opposition had moved 105 amendments, out of which 44 were accepted and included in the bill. He requested the opposition to withdraw remaining amendments to which the opposition did not agree. The amendments were rejected by the House with a majority vote in the second reading of the bill.
Through the bill, the ECP had been strengthened and made fully independent and autonomous. According to the bill, the ECP shall prepare an action plan six months before the elections and delimit constituencies after every census. Citizens, who have obtained CNICs (Computerized National Identity Cards) from NADRA (National Database Registration Authority) will be automatically enrolled as voters.
As far as practicable, distance between a polling station and the voters assigned to it has been reduced to one kilometre.
According to the approved bill, nomination form has been simplified and the same form has been prescribed for candidates for all seats. Printing of ballot papers will be based on the formula that number of ballot papers per polling station shall be equal to the number of votes at the polling station, rounded off to the nearest hundred.
Enabling provisions have been made for the ECP to conduct pilot projects for utilization of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Biometric Voters Identification (BVI) and voting by overseas Pakistanis. Maximum limit election expenses have been rationalized. Wealth statement will be filed by a member in the same form as is submitted under the Income Tax Ordinance 2001.
The election dispute resolution system has been made more expeditious and result-oriented. Local government constituencies shall be delimited by delimitation committees set up by the ECP for each district.
Functions of caretaker government have been confined to day to day routine, non-controversial matters and it shall not take major policy decisions except on urgent matters.
The ECP is also empowered to make rules without prior approval of the president or the government; as such rules will be subject to prior publication, seeking suggestions within 15 days of such publication.
The ECP shall ready a comprehensive action plan six months prior to the elections defining all legal and administrative responses that have been taken or are required to be taken. A transparent Results Management System for expeditious counting, compilation and dissemination of the election results shall be established by the ECP. Redressing complaints and grievances during various stages of the election process are also being authorized to the ECP.
The ECP is also being empowered to install surveillance cameras in highly sensitive polling stations for remote monitoring of activities in such polling stations. It has also been empowered to delegate its functions to its members and officers.
Submission of annual wealth statement in the same form as submitted under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 will be required by every member of an assembly or Senate. The ECP may suspend membership of the defaulting member and if the default resumes for more than 60 days, it shall issue a show cause notice for termination of his/her membership.
The commission shall inspect the wealth statement and in case it is found to be false, the commission may direct prosecution of the member for the offence of corrupt practice. For election conflicts, the system has been made more effective and result-oriented by including facilities like case management; day-to-day trial; mandatory costs for adjournments; suspension of the member for deliberate delay; and decision within four months.
Issuance of a Code of Conduct for political parties, candidates and election and polling agents may also be done by the ECP. The ECP shall take special actions to encourage participation of women in the electoral process, including registration of women voters and actual voting on polling day.
After the passage of bill, Law Minister Zahid Hamid thanked members of the main committee, sub-committees, NADRA and Leader of the House and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly.
National Assembly Tuesday passed a resolution for grant of presidential award for committee members who prepared the Election Bill, 2017.
The resolution was moved by Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch. The members of National Assembly congratulated each other for passage of the historic bill.