ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar has constituted a three-member SC bench to hear 17 petitions, seeking the right of vote for overseas Pakistanis.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, will take up the pleas on January 10.
The petitions, filed under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution, have requested the court to order the government to set up an appropriate infrastructure enabling the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes in the elections held in Pakistan.
In November 2017, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had told a parliamentary committee that overseas Pakistanis would not be able to cast their votes in the 2018 general elections due to unavailability of an appropriate infrastructure.
According to statistics, at least eight million Pakistanis live abroad.
In 2013, the then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had ruled that no legislation was required to give right of vote to the overseas Pakistanis, adding that elections could not be termed free, fair and impartial unless overseas Pakistanis were allowed to cast their vote. The ECP was directed to take concrete steps to enable participation of overseas Pakistanis in the elections.
The order, however, was not implemented as the ECP had been unable to set up an appropriate infrastructure to enable the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes in the general elections held in 2013. The ECP in a recent report submitted in the National Assembly, had admitted that the trial methods used by it (ECP) for voting of overseas Pakistanis did not prove to be effective, thus more efforts were needed to achieve the appropriate results.
Published in Daily Times, January 6th 2018.
