The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice has made recommendations to the government to approve electoral reforms, proposing independence and financial autonomy to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold free and fair elections.
Under the reforms process, the committee has proposed to the government to enhance the expenditure for the National Assembly Election to Rs 4 million and Rs 3 million for Provincial Assemblies Election. S A Qadri, the Convenor Sub-Committee on Amendment in Electoral Law explained that the lawmakers from Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh and KPK had recommended that the area in the jurisdiction of their respective constituencies require additional expenditure to approach all the voters for contesting election. In 2002, the ceiling for NA election was fixed at Rs 1.5 million and for PA election Rs 1 million.
The Electoral Reforms Bill also proposed to treat non-submission of returns regarding election expenses as illegal, while exceeding the prescribed limit to be dealt as corrupt practice. The committee also directed the ECP to formulate a code of conduct in the light of recommendations for contesting election. These amendments will allow wall chalking during the election, but put ban on displaying banners, billboards and posters.
The committee was informed that ECP is considering a proposal to make null and void the results of all those constituencies in upcoming general election where turnout of women voters would less than 10 percent of the total votes. The proposal was made part of the recommendations to address complaints that in some constituencies, women were deprived of their rights to vote, an official of Election Commission of Pakistan informed the committee.
The ECP has strongly recommended that it should be empowered to overtly deal with the agreement restraining women from casting their votes and should be more powerful to declare a polling station's results null and void where local political parties are entering into such an agreement, or where less than 10 percent of women have voted. There should also be a requirement for presiding officers to state the turnout of male and female voters separately.
Saira Afzal Tarar and Anusha Rehman Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) staged a walk out from the committee to protest against non-presentation of the National Accountability Commission Bill for the last three years in the committee. They alleged that the government was not serious in bringing the draft law to the committee to amend the bill and left the meeting despite requests from the committee chairperson, Begum Nasim Akhter Chaudhry and others.
The National Assembly will be completing its tenure in March 2013 with unanimous passage of landmark 18th, 19th and 20th amendment bills, but it appears to be faltering in adopting the most wanted National Accountability Commission Bill, which was lying with the committee since April 2009 because of non-agreement among the stakeholders.
The committee also considered the private members bill of former Justice Fakhar- un- Nisa Khokhar regarding the 'court of inheritance, defiling of graves, child molestation and blasphemy. Moreover private members bills of Sufyan Yousaf, Sajid Ahmed and Syed Nasir Ali Shah related to the political parties and representation of people act were also discussed in detail. The committee also discussed in detail the report by SA Iqbal Qadri, convenor of the sub-committee on amendment in the electoral laws. The committee discussed sections 10 to 14 of the proposed amendments and approved them.
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