Supreme Court of Pakistan. – File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court ordered the law ministry and the Election Commission of Pakistan on Wednesday to come up with an answer within two weeks to a petition seeking legislation to ensure true democracy within all political parties whose heads and other leaders were nominated and not elected.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry which had taken up the petition of Advocate Syed Feroz Shah Gilani asked respondents to submit their replies within two weeks.

The petitioner in his plea had said that political parties did not follow the system of primaries from the ward level upwards and because of the lack of democracy within political parties most of the people remained unrepresented and disenfranchised as more than two-thirds of the registered voters did not participate in the election process.

Thus the fundamental rights of the people, the petitioner said, were blatantly violated and they were not given the choice to choose their electoral candidate through a system of primaries as the people had in the US, UK and other democratic countries of the world.

Advocate Gilani also requested the court to order the Election Commission to make arrangements for closely supervising elections for all tiers of all registered political parties and no election symbols be allocated to political parties not practising democracy within their parties.

The Election Commission has never performed its duty to ensure free and fair elections within all political parties as envisaged in Political Parties Order, 2002. As a result, the petitioner said, the public-spirited political parties belonging to the middle class remained sidelined and after every election, people were governed by a plutocracy and democracy and good governance remained a distant dream.

The petitioner further pleaded that operation of Article 63-A which provided unprecedented powers to heads of all political parties should be stayed by the Supreme Court till all political parties ensured democracy within all parties as was the case in all democratic countries.

The lack of democracy also violated the Islamic concept of social and political justice and principles of equality among all citizens of the state, the petition said.