Political Parties’ Petitions with Election Tribunals June 2015 Update
Only five cases were decided by the election tribunals in April 2015 – bringing the total number of decided cases to 378 out of 4111 (352 out of 385 by the tribunals and 26 by the ECP itself). On the other hand, 33 petitions are still awaiting decisions.
Of the 378 cases, 154 have been dismissed on grounds of technical deficiencies, implying that the merits of the petitions were not adjudicated on. Forty-six petitions have been accepted; 25 dismissed due to non-prosecution; 31 dismissed as withdrawn and 120 dismissed after complete trial. The reasons for dismissal of two petitions are not known to FAFEN due to non-availability of their copies of orders.
With regards to the 46 petitions accepted, 10 each were filed by independent candidates and PML-N members, followed by PPPP (nine) and ANP (four). In addition, two petitions each filed by PTI, JUI-F and PML-F have been accepted so far.
On the other hand, 17 accepted petitions are against the returned candidates of PML-N, 12 cite independent candidates as respondents, followed by nine petitions against PPPP, three against PTI and two against JUI-F.
Given the backlog, the ECP seems to have failed to ensure compliance with the mandatory legal provision of disposing of election petitions within 120 days of receipt by the tribunals. Section 67 (1A) of the Representation of People Act 1976 states that “where a petition is not decided within four months, further adjournment sought by any party shall be given only on payment of special cost of Rs10,000 per adjournment and adjournment shall not be given for more than three days.”
Even though all the pending cases have crossed the limit of 120 days, the compliance with the mandatory provision of imposing the fine has been very rare. It is important to mention that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has already emphasized that the tribunals should follow the above-mentioned provision strictly.
Moreover, there is no provision in the law that deals with writ petitions against interim orders of election tribunals, or the timeframe for their disposal, if filed. As a result, stay orders passed by high courts against writ petitions linger on for several months; delaying the disposal of petitions within the legally-stipulated deadline. According to FAFEN’s observation, at least two petitions filed by PML have made no material progress so far. These petitions remained pending with the ECP for the longest time, and following their delayed transfer to the tribunal, their proceedings were stayed by the Lahore High Court.
The ECP constituted 14 tribunals across the country to redress election complaints following the 2013 General Elections. The three tribunals in Balochistan, along with the tribunals in Dera Ismail Khan and Bahawalpur, have ceased functioning after deciding all their cases. Similarly, the tribunals in Sukkur and Karachi have also ceased operations after their pending cases were transferred to the Hyderabad tribunal.
The election results were officially notified on May 22, 2013, following which the candidates had until July 6 to submit their petitions. The ECP received a total of 409 petitions, out of which 25 were dismissed by the commission itself during initial scrutiny.
As many as 384 petitions were referred to the tribunals – one petition was sent back by the Rawalpindi tribunal and dismissed by ECP due to non-prosecution, bringing the number of cases dismissed by the ECP to 26.
Another petition was filed directly with the Lahore tribunal, bypassing the legal mechanism which resulted in its dismissal at the initial stage. Furthermore, another petition was filed with the ECP in June 2014 and dismissed by the Lahore tribunal in the same month, bringing the total number of petitions to 411.
1 FAFEN had earlier reported that a total of 410 petitions were filed following the 2013 General Elections. More recently, another petition was filed with the ECP and dismissed by the Lahore tribunal, bringing the total number of filed petitions to 411. The details of the petition are given in the next section of this report.
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