Census delay

The inability to conduct the much delayed census was always likely to throw the sitting government into hot waters. Slowly, but surely, the political and legal consequences of the failure to conduct the election in March this year as promised are beginning to be felt. Back then the government used the lame excuse that it needed hundreds of thousands of soldiers to conduct the census safely, and that they were simply not available. With a case against the non-holding of the census being heard by the Supreme Court, the honourable judges are simply not buying these excuses. On Thursday last week, the court noted that holding a population census is a constitutional requirement, not a tradition. During the hearing, the government proposed to hold the census in March 2017, a position that the SC has rejected. While the SC conceded that the army’s involvement would improve the credibility of the census, it also noted that the impression that there could be no census without the army’s involvement was wrong. It questioned why the impression was being given that the census would only be credible and safe if one institution was involved.

The SC has opened up the chief contradiction in the government’s position. A population census is primarily a civilian task. There is no concrete reason for why such a task cannot be carried out in over 90 percent of Pakistan’s territory without additional security. In fact, one could argue that by trumpeting the security excuse, the government is making the census controversial unnecessarily. The SC chief justice has given the government a much more clear warning. Since holding a census is a constitutional requirement, there can be no delimitation of constituencies for the scheduled general election in 2018. In effect, the SC has warned that there can be no election in 2018 if a census has not been conducted. The SC also brought up the possibility of a phased census once again, which is not liked by the smaller provinces. With August 31 set as the next date of the hearing, the government needs to provide a clear plan and a concrete date for conducting the census. This is in everyone’s best interest.