The Supreme Court (SC) suspended the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) order to establish additional election tribunals, as well as the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) April 26 announcement.
The Supreme Court’s judgment came as a five-member panel heard the ECP’s appeal against the LHC’s ruling last month, which established eight electoral tribunals to examine election complaints for national and provincial assembly districts.
The bench was led by Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Qazi Faez Isa, and included Justices Amin-ud-Din Khan, Jamal Khan Mandokhel, Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi.
Today’s Supreme Court decision is the latest development in the continuing dispute between the ECP and the LHC over the selection of judges to electoral tribunals for the February 8 elections.
The ECP maintained that Article 219 of the constitution did not specifically require the commission to communicate with the chief justice of the relevant high court before appointing election tribunals or granting territorial jurisdiction to such election tribunals.
During today’s session, Justice Mandokhail stated that the electoral body cannot prescribe to the LHC CJ the availability of handpicked justices.
“You [ECP] can not select between the judges,” the judge explained.
Meanwhile, CJP Isa stated that the LHC CJ has the authority to decide whether judges would be available for election tribunals.
In today’s decision, the court bemoaned the lack of contact between the electoral body and the LHC, noting that the two judges notified by the ECP in response to the six proposed by the LHC CJ were “insufficient”.
Stressing that the issue emerged after the LHC established extra tribunals, the SC decided to keep the case pending before the court and delegated the subject to discussions between the ECP and the LHC chief judge.
The court deferred the case until serious talks on the subject were made between the LHC and the electoral board.