The Senate passes Bill 2024 after the NA

As part of the debate over the Election Act Amendment Bill 2024 on Thursday, the members of the opposition benches lodged strong protests in the Senate.

The Chairman of the Senate, Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani, expressed alarm over the sloganeering of the opposition on Friday, telling the members, “Do not take this as a National Assembly. If the protests continue, I will take stern action against you.”.

It was subsequently announced that the opposition members had staged a symbolic walkout and had returned to the floor of the Upper House.

Specifically, the bill is intended to restore the original provision that allowed retired judges of high courts to be appointed to the tribunals for hearing petitions regarding elections to the National Assembly, Senate, and provincial assemblies in the upcoming elections.

Azam Nazeer Tarar, the Federal Minister for Law and Justice, has presented the bill in Parliament. As the minister spoke on the occasion, he said that the proposed bill had undergone a lot of changes over the past few years in 2023. There has been a proposed amendment that would provide a six-month period for the election tribunals to resolve election-related petitions that are referred to them.

Previously, the minister stated that as part of the previous legislation, retired judges were appointed to serve as members of the election tribunals instead of sitting judges who were being appointed by sitting judges. The government took back Section 140 of the Election Act in 2017, after restoring the original provision that was removed in the last election.

As per its statement of object and reasons, this is what was meant by the Elections (Amendment) Act, 2023: “In the year 2023, it was amended by the Elections (Amendment) Act, 2023 by changing Section 140 such that only serving judges of a High Court would constitute members of the Election Tribunal for a parliamentary election or a presidential election.”

I must admit that one of the points that was overlooked is the fact that the High Courts have a considerable backlog of litigation in pending cases. There is still a heavy backlog of litigation in pending cases and it is extremely difficult for the serving judges of the High Courts to spare the required time for swift adjudication of election petitions.

Therefore, the original provision of Section 140 should be restored so that retired judges of high courts will be eligible to be appointed to the Election Tribunal for hearing election petitions.

Furthermore, for consistency reasons, it would be desirable for retired District and Sessions judges and retired Additional District and Sessions judges to be eligible to serve on the Election Tribunal as members of the Election Tribunal for hearing election petitions pertaining to elections to local governments.

It was announced in late June that the National Assembly had approved the Election Act Amendment Bill, 2024, despite protests from the opposition against the reinstatement of the original provision which allowed retired judges of the high courts to be appointed as members of the electoral tribunals that hear election petitions.

As part of the previous legislation, retired judges were appointed to serve on the ETs as members, and this was replaced by judges who are currently sitting on the ETs. The PML-N government, however, has restored the original provision of Section 140 of the Election Act, 2017, which was removed by the previous government.

During the National Assembly’s maiden meeting on June 27, the Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs passed a majority vote on amendments to the amended Election Act that seek to restore the original provision of Section 140 by making retired high court judges eligible to serve on election tribunals once more. The amendment was approved by the Standing Committee for Parliamentary Affairs with a majority vote on June 27.

It is hoped that the amendment will facilitate the settlement of petitions for the National Assembly’s elections, the Senate’s elections, the provincial assemblies’ elections, and the local government’s elections.

Timenews1 provided that news.