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ISLAMABAD: The Electoral Commission of Pakistan declared on Thursday before the High Court of Islamabad that the order issued by President Dr. Arif Alvi for the appointment of two members of the PCE of Sindh and Balochistan violated the relevant clauses of the Constitution.<\/p>\n
In a related development, the opposition parties condemned the government's measure to present a reference against the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), retired judge Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan for refusing to administer the oath to PCE members and warning him of serious consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has already tried to appoint PCE officials illegally in both Sindh and Balochistan. Now they have started a movement against the head of the electoral commission because he refused to administer the oath. [to ECP members] due to his unconstitutional appointment, "said the parliamentary leader of the People's Party of Pakistan in the Senate, Sherry Rehman." It seems that the ghost of Shareefuddin Pirzada's past is leading this government to its extra-constitutional ruin, "he added.<\/p>\n
The leader of the Muslim League of Pakistan-Nawaz, Ahsan Iqbal, also criticized the measure and said he exposed the true face of the ruling party.<\/p>\n
\nOpposition parties condemn the government's informed measure to present a reference against the chief commissioner<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In response to a petition filed by lawyer Jahangir Khan Jadoon at the IHC against the appointment of two PCE members, the commission argued that the CEC had refused to administer the oath because they had been appointed by the president without following the procedure established in the clauses 2A and 2B of article 213 of the constitution.<\/p>\n
The ECP explained that under clause 2A, "the Prime Minister, in consultation with the opposition leader in the National Assembly, will send three names for the commissioner's appointment to a parliamentary committee for his hearing and confirmation." Clause 2B explained the composition of the parliamentary commission, said the answer.<\/p>\n
According to the ECP, the president not only violated these clauses, but also omitted the parliamentary committee when making these appointments.<\/p>\n
On August 22, President Alvi appointed Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui of Sindh and Munir Ahmed Kakar of Baluchistan against the two positions previously held by Abdul Ghaffar Soomro and withdrew Judge Shakeel Baloch from the respective provinces.<\/p>\n
The CEC refused to administer the oath to both designated members and wrote a letter to the law ministry, noting that the appointment did not agree with the relevant articles of the Constitution. He also cited a ruling issued by a court of five judges of the Supreme Court in 2013, which held that the president did not enjoy discretionary powers in the appointment of members of the CEC and the ECP. He made it clear that he would not administer the oath to the members designated "unconstitutionally."<\/p>\n
According to the petition presented by Barrister Jadoon, the criteria for the appointment of the members of the CEC and the ECP have been established in the Constitution. He said the notification issued for the appointment of PCE members on August 22 violates articles 213 and 218 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n
The petition noted that due to "serious illegality, the chief election commissioner has refused to administer an oath" to newly appointed members. He argued that there was no constitutional provision that allowed the president to appoint Siddiqui and Kakar invoking his discretionary powers, adding that after the approval of the 18th Amendment of the Constitution, the president had lost his discretion to appoint the members of the PCE.<\/p>\n
The petition held that the initial consultation between the prime minister and the opposition leader had not taken place. Then, a deputy secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent the nominations to the opposition leader on behalf of the government, which were later withdrawn, he added.<\/p>\n
According to the petition, the president, the prime minister and the secretary of parliamentary affairs could not complete the constitutional process due to bad faith, although the five-judge SC bank had specifically provided guidelines for appointments in the PCE. He said the appointment of both PCE members was made without following due process and was marred by nepotism and favoritism.<\/p>\n
The petitioner requested the court to annul these appointments.<\/p>\n
The petition cited President Alvi, Prime Minister Imran Khan, the secretary of parliamentary affairs, the CEC, Mr. Siddiqui and Mr. Kakar as defendants.<\/p>\n
Posted on Dawn, September 13, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/pre>\n<\/pre>\n
Source: https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1504921\/president-violated-constitution-ecp-argues-before-ihc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: The Electoral Commission of Pakistan declared on Thursday before the High Court of Islamabad that the order issued by President Dr. Arif Alvi for the appointment of two members of the PCE of Sindh and Balochistan violated the relevant clauses of the Constitution. In a related development, the opposition parties condemned the government's measure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11828],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}