Tribunal’s verdict to have no impact on JC proceedings: experts

ISLAMABAD: Top legal experts say the verdict of the election tribunal on NA-125 will have no impact on the proceedings of the Judicial Commission, which is only probing ‘systematic rigging in general elections 2013’.
These experts believe that the record of irregularities provided to the election tribunal would play important role while going for appeal against the decision of the election tribunal, however, according to Section 70 of the Representation of the People Act 1976 the tribunal has the authority to declare the elections result null and void on the basis of irregularities.
They say the gravity of the irregularities in the elections can play important role - if the winning candidate is winning by heavy margin whereas the volume of irregularities is minor then the election tribunal’s decision could be challenged and successfully defended.
Justice (retd) Tariq Mehmood while talking to The News said under Section 70 of the Representation of the People Act 1976 the tribunal has the power of declaring elections result null and void. On the other hand we have to see what kind of evidence has been submitted before the election tribunal and the volume of irregularities would also matter a lot, he commented.
To a question whether the decision of the election tribunal would affect the proceedings of the Judicial Commission, Justice Tariq said he doesn’t think the decision would have any impact on the commission’s proceedings. The Judicial Commission is probing whether there was any systematic rigging in the general elections or not, he said.
On the other hand, Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmed while talking to The News commented that although the tribunal’s decision could not have any impact on the judicial commission’s proceedings, however the commission could examine the tribunal’s decision. “The Judicial Commission is examining whether the general elections of 2013 were free and fair whereas the commission’s area of examination is vast and it could look into the tribunal’s result of NA 125,” commented Justice Wajih. When asked whether the gravity or volume of irregularity would matter while challenging the tribunal’s decision, he said it would not matter a lot as the irregularities emerged during the hearing were from a few polling stations and not from all the polling stations. Therefore if all the constituencies were examined the volume of irregularities would be much higher than this, he commented.
Another top legal expert while talking to The News said the decision of the election tribunal would have no impact on the proceedings of the judicial commission. “The election tribunal has the power of declaring the elections result null and void on the basis of any irregularity. However he said the volume of irregularities would also matter at the time of going for appeal against the decision of the tribunal,” he commented.
Section 70 of the Representation of the People Act, 1976 says: “The Tribunal shall declare the election as a whole to be void if it is satisfied that the result of the election has been materially affected by reason of -(a) the failure of any person to comply with the provisions of the Act or the rules; or (b) the prevalence of extensive corrupt or illegal practice at the election”.