CJ-led JC to keep proceedings open

ISLAMABAD: The Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk led Judicial Commission has departed from the past practice of keeping proceedings of such forums secret, which has always been widely questioned by public circles.
The decision will be extensively acclaimed as it will ensure openness and transparency. Those who oppose secrecy and confidentiality in such cases will be happy and satisfied. The Judicial Commissions had been holding closed-door hearings, provoking discerning people to claim that if an issue is to be dumped, it is referred to a commission or committee. But it is a different story this time.
Every judicial commission made in the past had done its job as per its mandate and submitted its findings to the government of the day. But successive administrations had preferred not to make their reports public, which had been burying the very purpose behind establishing such bodies.
The job of the commissionsfinishes after they prepare their findings and file them with the government. Subsequently, it is the decision of the government whether or not to make the reports public. In almost every case, governments had been shying away from releasing the findings without any credible reasons.
It was the discretion of the present three-member commission to keep its hearings secret or let them be public. It decided to go for open court proceedings. Under Section 5(1) of the General Elections 2013 Inquiry Commission Ordinance-2015, the commission has the power to regulate its own procedure, including the fixing of place and time of its sittings.
The most important highlight of the inaugural deliberations of the commission is that all political parties and persons, who will present their brief statements to the commission, will be required to submit supporting evidence or material’.
It clearly implies that mere political statements alleging ‘massive rigging’ in the previous elections, which had been made innumerably, will be inconsequential as far as the instant commission is concerned. After every general election in Pakistan, specifically in the wake of the 2013 polls, several political parties claimed that they could not get the due share in the electoral results because of manipulation against them. None of them ever presented any convincing evidence that could stand the scrutiny of law.
However, this phase of issuing such statements has gone by. It is now time for every political party and individual to come out with the proof and evidence and submit it to the commission to establish that their mandate was stolen through rigging through a deliberate systematic manipulation.
The main responsibility to show that the last elections were unprecedented engineered to defeat it and make the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) win lies on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) because it has been the motivating force behind the creation of this commission. It agitated for months, projecting this demand, and kept the government under pressure.
The commission has a specific scope of inquiry. It will inquire into and determine whether or not the elections were organized and conducted impartially, honestly, fairly, justly and in accordance with law; whether or not the polls were manipulated or influenced pursuant to a systematic effort by design by anyone; and whether or not their results on an overall basis are a true and fair reflection of the mandate given by the electorate.
Under the ordinance, the commission has the powers to punish any person who abused, scandalized or ridiculed it. Section 3 says the commission will have the same powers as the Supreme Court to punish any person, who abuses, interferes with or obstructs its process in any way or disobeys its order or direction; scandalises it or any of its member or, otherwise, does anything which tends to bring it or any of its member in relation to his office into hatred, ridicule or contempt.
Any person, who does anything which tends to prejudice the inquiry or determination of any matter pending before the commission or does any other act, deed or thing, which, under any other law, constitutes contempt of court, will qualify for punishment.However, fair comment made in good faith and in public interest on the final report after the completion of the inquiry will not constitute contempt of the commission.