Dar summons meeting of election reforms committee on Tuesday

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has summoned the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms on Tuesday to examine the progress made by its sub-committee so far and to review the electoral process shortcomings which were pointed out in the report of the general elections 2013 inquiry commission.
The meeting of the parliamentary committee that would be chaired by its head Ishaq Dar and will also set guidelines for its sub-committee to review the electoral process and remove shortcomings as pointed out in the judicial commission report.
Though the inquiry commission pointed out nine shortcomings of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) yet it expected the parliament to review the electoral laws and to improve them. The parliamentary committee for electoral reforms and its sub-committee held a number of meetings during last many months in which it proposed amendments in the electoral laws for ensuring free, fair and transparent elections.
The sub-committee meeting which was held on November 19, had proposed amendments in the election laws, empowering ECP to have control over polling officials. It had also undertaken review of five other laws i.e.
Delimitation of Constituencies Act 1974, Electoral Rolls Act 1974, Political Parties Order, 2002, Allocation of Symbols Order, 2002, Election Commission Order, 2002 related to election process in the country and simultaneously, the sub-committee had also studied proposals received about each law.
The parliamentary committee has received 316 recommendations on electoral reforms from the ECP, public and relevant stakeholders. Of the total recommendations, 202 have been submitted by different segments of the society. The recommendations proposed by ECP are mainly demanding strengthening their authority on electoral process.
In its last meeting, the sub-committee had proposed allowing a serving judge of the superior courts, bureaucrats and technocrats as a chief election commissioner or member election commission. Currently, under the law only retired judges from the superior judiciary were appointed as a chief election commissioner and members of the ECP.
The issue of using of Iris verification of the voters in the next general elections is also likely to be discussed in the upcoming meeting of the parliamentary committee.It is to be mentioned here that Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on video images of one or both of the irises of an individual’s eyes, whose complex random patterns are unique, stable, and can be seen from some distance.
Several hundred millions of persons in several countries around the world have been enrolled in Iris recognition systems for convenience purposes such as passport-free automated border-crossings, and some national ID programmes.