ECP members can only be removed by SJC

ISLAMABAD: Despite knowing that neither the government nor the chief election commissioner (CEC) has the powers to remove the four members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Imran Khan has once again asked the government to support him in seeking the ouster of the ECP members.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Imran again demanded of the government to support him in this matter. He warned of taking to the streets in case his demand was not met.
PTI’s legal brains also know that the procedure of removing the ECP members and chief election commissioner (CEC) is the same to removing the apex court’s judges i.e. the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), as provided in Article 209.
As per the Constitution, the members are appointed under Article 218, which says the ECP will consist of the CEC, who will be its chairman and four members, each of whom has been a judge of a high court from each province. Similarly, according to Article 213, the CEC or a member will not be ousted from office except in the manner prescribed in Article 209. However, they may resign.
The main objective of providing constitutional protection to the tenure of the CEC and the ECP members is to enable them to act without the fear of being shunted out unceremoniously and whimsically and to refuse to yield to any political pressure.
It is interesting to note here that besides the PTI, the PPP has also started demanding removal of the four members of ECP and the Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah has asked them to resign from their posts. Interestingly, it was the PPP who had picked these members when it was in the government, in consultation with the-then opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The PTI, soon after losing the general elections 2013, started a campaign against ‘rigging’ and asked the government to open four constituencies for biometric verification of the votes despite knowing that the government was unable to do so and even the ECP after a certain time period was not able to open these four constituencies as only the election tribunals could do so.
Interestingly, the PTI leadership held a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza just before the release of the Judicial Commission’s report and asked him to remove the four members of the ECP. The CEC maintained that he was unable to do so as these members could only be removed by following a constitutional procedure.
The incumbent members, appointed in June 2011 as per the 18th Amendment introduced in 2010, will complete their constitutionally mandated five-year term in mid-2016.
Although, the CEC is the chairman of the ECP, its members have almost equal powers. For example, under clause 2 of Article 63 of the Constitution, if a question arises whether a federal lawmaker has become disqualified from being an MP, the Speaker, in the case of a member of the National Assembly, and the Chairman, in the case of a Senator, will, unless he decides that no such question has arisen, refer the question to the ECP within thirty days and if he fails to do so within this period, it will be deemed to have been referred to the ECP, not the CEC, for decision.
Only the CEC and the four members are appointed or removed strictly as per the Constitution. The nomination of provincial election commissioners (PECs) is done differently. The CEC nominates them from amongst the senior ECP officials, who are civil servants. Unlike the CEC and ECP members, they are not the constitutional office holders.