Editorial Law-makers’ suspension The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday suspended the membership of as many as 211 members of parliament and the four provincial assemblies for their failure to submit details of their assets and liabilities. The suspended law-makers include; 40 MNAs, two Senators, 98 members of the Punjab Assembly, 32 members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, 28 members of the Sindh Assembly and nine members of the Balochistan Assembly. The notification bars these law-makers from attending sessions of the legislatures. Under sub-section (1) of the section 42-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1976, every member of the National and provincial assemblies and Senate is supposed to file statement of their assets and liabilities to the Election Commission. Filthy rich law-makers, who are non-filer of their wealth details, are facing suspension but under the law there is no penalty that can be enforced if they continue to defy the ECP the compulsion. However, the hapless Election Commission can only submit its recommendations to the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms for punitive action against non-filers that the parliament can overturn if it desires so. Hence the issue of non-filing of assets comes to rest without causing any worry to influential law-makers; the previous history stands witness to it. The ECP also carries out scrutiny of the assets and liabilities details of the legislators but in the absence of legal cover the exercise remains a joke as it could not weed out the liars. Under Section 62 and 63, the law-makers and the government office-holders are deem to be Sadiq and Ameens but the mechanism or the modus operandi, being applied by the helpless Elections Commission, does not bestow upon powers to establish the fact that the law-makers truly fulfill the criterion. Thus the exercise that the Election Commission undertakes every year seldom bears any fruit. Now the time has come when the men sitting in the power-corridors should bring in necessary reforms that can ensure the fact that the only honest politicians to come through to become law-makers. Secondly, the law-makers are meant for legislation only thus the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms should work out modalities wherein the legislators are confined to law-making. Their money minting privileges like job quotas and allocations of the development funds must be done away with as the law-makers are not supposed to undertake such supervisory role. Once doors of money-making windows are shut on them their chances of collecting black-money will automatically diminish hence concealing assets they have piled up from their business will need no cover to take refuge under. Corruption in Pakistan is an old saga that surfaces every now and then. Irony is that every political party talks much against it when it is out of power. But as it comes into power, the rulers swim along the tide thus plethora of lies in the assets details pops up in headlines just for a short time; finally it goes under the carpet unnoticed. The trend needs to undergo a change in the laws governing the law-makers to make them more socially responsible. Otherwise, corruption will not come to an end.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 06:01:45 +0000
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