ISLAMABAD: In what appears to be a surprise move, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to seek services of judicial officers from lower courts to act as district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs) in the upcoming general polls.

According to a statement released by the ECP on Friday, letters have been written to registrars of the respective high courts in the light of Section 50 (1) (c) and 51 (1) of the Elections Act, 2017 asking for lists of district and sessions judges, additional sessions judges, senior civil judges and civil judges.

Informed sources told Dawn that during an interaction between Chief Election Commissioner retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza and the field staff of the ECP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the district and regional election commissioners, in May last year it was suggested that DROs and ROs should be drawn from the judiciary.

The sources said that the ECP field staff’s members were unanimous in their demand, with all of them being of the opinion that even if it was not possible to spare judicial officers for the appointment of ROs, the DROs must be district and sessions judges as the administrative officers had a history of behaving like personal employees of influential politicians.

The same request for 2013 polls was dismissed by National Judicial Policy Making Committee

It was on their insistence that the CEC agreed to make a request at an appropriate time to the chief justice of Pakistan who also heads the National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) to approve the appointment of judicial officers to act as DROs and ROs during the next general elections.

The NJPMC, in its judicial policy of 2009, had decided to stop judicial officers from performing election duties as this had dragged the judiciary into political controversies.

A request to get assistance of judicial officers for 2013 general elections had been dismissed by the committee during the days of retired Justice Hamid Ali Mirza as the CEC, but a similar attempt made by his successor retired Justice Fakharuddin G. Ebrahim in November 2012 finally succeeded and the NJPMC agreed to a one-time lifting of the bar on the judiciary’s involvement in the election process.

The committee which met with the then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in the chair had decided to provide services of an adequate number of judicial officers to the ECP for their appointment as district returning officers and returning officers.

The committee observed that since the administration of justice was the prime responsibility of the judiciary, judicial officers appo­inted as returning officers should do their routine judicial work and perform election duties in extra hours in the morning and evening so that litigants did not suffer.

In his introductory remarks, the then chief justice said that the past involvement of the judiciary in the election process had adversely affected the judicial work. Therefore, at the time of framing the National Judicial Policy, it was decided to keep the judiciary away from the election process and focus all energies and time on administration of justice.

A senior representative of the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) Mudassir Rizvi, when contacted, noted that the ECP must hire a range of officials as returning officers instead of completely relying on judicial officers, pointing out that the law permitted it as well. “The ECP will be in a better position to compare the effectiveness of officials from different organisations in ensuring enforcement of Elections Act, 2017, if it is done”, he remarked.

He also said the ECP should engage its own officials as DROs to have a direct control over all aspects of elections. He said the ECP must also be able to take direct disciplinary action against judicial officers found involved in any wrongdoing, saying that the current law was ambiguous over this question. “If their appointment is made in consultation with the chief justices of relevant high courts, does it mean that any action against them can also be taken only in consultation with the chief justice concerned,” he asked.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2018