Pakistan’s CJ Qazi Faez comes to Election Commission’s rescue on reserved seats

ISLAMABAD: Amidst a legal tussle over the reserved seats in Pakistan’s legislatures, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa has ruled that the election commission is not a subordinate institution to the Supreme Court or the government but an independent authority with a constitutional role to conduct elections.

He was heading a full court of the Supreme Court (SC) hearing on Monday on a set of appeals by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) against the denial of reserved seats to women and non-Muslim candidates, the Dawn newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The top judge said the Supreme Court can only exercise its jurisdiction if it is convinced that the commission has gone beyond its constitutional role, pointing out that ideally, all institutions should function within their own prescribed domain.

The Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to do a calculation by applying the formula of allotting reserved seats among political parties based on the election results of 2018 by excluding, as well as including, independents to understand the difference, the report said.

The bench intends to understand the actual calculations of the allocation of reserved seats applied to the results of the February 8 elections, the report said.

Last month, the ECP submitted to the Supreme Court that jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) is not eligible for reserved seats as the party does not allow non-Muslims to be a part of it.

The ECP filed a reply before the Supreme Court to the SIC plea against the rejection of its claim on reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies after the general election held on February 8.

The ECP said that reserved seats cannot be allocated to the SIC, which is backed by 71-year-old Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), as the party failed to submit the list of nominees for the reserved seats by the deadline of December 24.