Removing ECPmembers is easier said than done

ISLAMABAD: Neither the government nor the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) has powers to remove the four members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), all retired high court judges, while some political parties have called for their summary ouster.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have urged the ECP members to bow out because of their failures as pointed out in the report of the 3-judge Inquiry Commission.
The PPP had picked up these members, when it was in government, in consultation with the then opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The PTI has been pressing for their exit since losing the 2013 general elections, a demand that it repeated after the findings of the Commission saying that the ECP under them was totally unable to fairly conduct the polls. It referred to a large number of lapses, shortcomings and flaws of the ECP in the last elections.
Sometime back before the Commission released its report, a PTI delegation, which had held a goodwill meeting with new CEC Justice (R) Sardar Mohammad Raza, had aired this demand, but he told the team that he was helpless in this connection and that the members can only be shown the door under the Constitution.
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.
The method to remove superior court judges applies to these members through the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), which is provided in article 209.
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.
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 objective of providing a fail-safe security to the tenure of the CEC and the ECP members was to enable them to act without fear of being shunted out unceremoniously and whimsically and to refuse to yield to any political pressure.
It is due to the constitutionally guaranteed term that no government has the authority to dismiss any ECP member. The PTI worked hard to make ECP members to succumb to its pressure and quit but they have stood ground.
All of them held the present positions in the 2013 elections. The PTI was hopeful of their resignations after CEC Fakhruddin G Ebrahim had caved in. Since it did not happen, it continued its campaign against them.
Like the CEC, an ECP member can’t hold an office of profit in the service of Pakistan or occupy any other position carrying the right to remuneration. Also, an ECP member will not hold any office of profit in the service of Pakistan before the expiration of two years after he has ceased to hold that slot. This bar applies to the government servants.
Previously, the CEC was entrusted with holding and conducting the presidential election and used to act as its returning officer, but now it is the ECP which performs this function. Now, it is the ECP, not the CEC, which appoints presiding officers to chair the meetings of the federal and provincial assemblies, when required under the Constitution.
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 any 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.