ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has observed that the PTI government applied every tactic to delay the local government elections in the federal capital.

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani in a detailed judgement on identical petitions filed against the Islamabad Local Government Ordinance pointed out that the Supreme Court on March 15, 2021, had issued directions for holding timely elections.

“While going through the said directions on the assurance of the federating unit, no exception could be taken that the elections could be delayed or postponed when the judgement of the apex court has been announced on March 15, 2021. On the other hand, the federal government applied every method to delay the electoral process of local government to meet their own design though they are unable to enact the law as per their own choice rather opted to create a regime through temporary legislation though the ordinance cannot permanently repeal a permanent Act,” the judgement stated.

The PTI government had promulgated the presidential ordinance for holding the LG elections.

According to the petitions, the ordinance was a time-barred legislation and cannot be applied for elections of the local government.

In March 2022, the IHC struck down the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Ordinance 2021.

The court observed that the federal government did not assist the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to perform its statutory duty as reflected from the letter dated January 13, 2021, written to the secretary Ministry of Interior for provision of maps and notification for delimitation. The ECP notified a delimitation committee on April 30, 2021.

The court also pointed out some other anomalies and observed that “All these factors establish the negative intent of the Ministry of Interior who is not interested, even ordinance has been promulgated on November 24, 2021, but the rules have not been framed thereunder which has created a difficult situation especially when local government ordinance is not in conformity with the Constitution of Pakistan, Election Commission Act 2017 and CDA Ordinance 1960.”

The ordinance had been assailed by a number of petitioners, including PML-N politician Mehtab Abbasi, CDA Officers Association and the CDA Mazdoor Union represented by Adil Aziz Qazi, Umer Ijaz Gilani and Kashif Malik Advocates, respectively.

The ordinance had repealed the Islamabad Local Governments Act 2015. The court struck down the ordinance on the ground that it did not fulfil the three preconditions for ordinance-making laid under Article 89 of the Constitution.

The court verdict said: “In a nutshell, the federal government being the state representative of people of Islamabad is bound to follow the mandate of Constitution to provide and extend every cooperation to the ECP under Article 140-A of the Constitution for establishment of local government in Islamabad, failing which rights of citizens in terms of Article 17 stand negated and the scheme adopted by the federal government through temporary ordinance seems to be against the mandate of constitutional guarantee where it is necessary to devolve the political administration and financial responsibilities through elected representatives of the local government, as such the ordinance fails the test of constitutionally and observations of the fundamental rights of people of Islamabad, even the reasons for promulgation of the ordinance are not legally justiciable under Articles 4, 10, 17 and 25 of the Constitution as the ordinance lacks the basic theme, which is a temporary legislation eliminating the permanent legislation.”

The judgement noted that the PTI government promulgated seven ordinances in the first parliamentary year, 31 ordinances in the second parliamentary year, 24 in the third and more than 10 ordinances in the fourth parliamentary year. As such, this fell beyond the constitutional mandate.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022