With the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) decision permitting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to keep its election symbol, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is anticipated to convene today (Thursday) to discuss options. This was reported by Geo News on Thursday.
The PHC ruling, which overturned the electoral body’s ruling to deem PTI’s intra-party polls “unconstitutional” and deprive the party of its recognizable bat electoral symbol, will be up for debate at the ECP meeting.
On a joint appeal filed by PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan and six other party leaders, a two-member bench of the PHC made up of Justices Ejaz Anwar and Syed Arshad Ali announced a brief judgment one day earlier, asking the court to declare the ECP order unconstitutional and without jurisdiction.
The ECP ruling on December 22, 2023, according to the decree, was “illegal, without any lawful authority and of no legal effect.”
A thorough ruling will be released at a later time.
Following intra-party polling, the court ordered the ECP to post the certificate that the PTI had filed on its website.
In accordance with Sections 215 and 217 read in conjunction with any other enabling provision of the Election Act 2017 and Election Rules 2017,” it is further held and stated that the PTI is entitled to the election symbol, according to the order.
Following the ruling, the ECP convened a quick consultation conference to discuss the circumstances surrounding the PTI’s reintroduction of the “bat” symbol.
The News was informed by commission sources that the discussion covered a few legal and constitutional issues of the subject.
The legal wing will brief the commission during the forum’s second, in-depth meeting today (Thursday), and participants will also be asked to share their thoughts on potential solutions.
They said that the PHC’s ruling is expected to be contested in Pakistan’s Supreme Court, and the ECP is expected to make that judgment.
Time constraints are a significant issue since, although the list of symbols was received on Tuesday, the Returning Officers (ROs) have to assign poll symbols to the contesting candidates by January 13. The list does not include more than twelve symbols, including the symbol “bat.”
