FAFEN says only seven percent election petitions disposed by tribunals so far

Islamabad: The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has said that only 25 out of 337 petitions have been disposed of by the election tribunals as of August 2024.
FAFEN stated in its report, released on Monday about the performance of tribunals in the country.

The FAFEN has systematically tracked the work of election petitions filed with 23 election tribunals which indicate that only 25 out of 377 petitions have been disposed of by the tribunals as of August 17, 2024 – a meagre seven percent.

Of the disposed petitions, four pertained to National Assembly (NA) constituencies and 21 to Provincial Assembly (PA) constituencies.

With six tribunals in Punjab province still inactive, this slow pace may result in multiple petitions lingering beyond the legal deadline of 180 days from the date of their filing.

Legally, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is bound to publish in the official Gazette the names of the returned candidate (candidate with the highest number of votes) and all other contesting candidates along with the number of votes obtained by them (section 98 of the Elections Act, 2017).

Any losing candidate can file petition within 45 days of the gazette notification of the returned candidate (section 142) and each petition shall be decided within 180 days of its filing (section 148).

Through amendments to the Elections Act, 2017, enacted in August 2023, Parliament extended the time limit for the disposal of election petitions from 120 days to 180 days from the date of their filing. The amendments also introduced measures to expedite the disposal of petitions by capping the maximum duration of stay orders issued by higher courts in such cases to six months.

However, the FAFEN report noted that the ongoing operations of the tribunals, particularly in Punjab, has not been reflecting the spirit of the law, due to multiple factors, including prolonged legal interpretational differences between the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Lahore High Court (LHC) regarding the notification of six tribunals in the province, which has rendered them dysfunctional.