National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Sunday conveyed he will not form a parliamentary panel to pick a new chief and members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) until Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Leader of the Opposition Omar Ayub have completed their consultation.
Last week, Sadiq told the Lower House he had formally written to the government and the opposition and sought nominations for the parliamentary panel. “The parliamentary committee will be formed once the nominations are received,” he had said in response to Ayub formally requesting the constitution of a committee to initiate the appointment process.
“Formation of the parliamentary committee cannot take place before the consultation process between the prime minister and the opposition leader is complete,” Sadiq wrote in a formal letter responding to Ayub’s request.
Outlining the constitutional process for committee formation, Sadiq said consultations between the prime minister and the opposition leader are ongoing. He emphasized the committee can only be formed after both parties submit their proposed names. “If the prime minister and the opposition leader fail to reach a consensus, the matter will be referred to the NA speaker, who will then proceed with forming a parliamentary committee,” he states, adding this would follow a formal request from the premier.
“The committee will be formed based on party representation in the National Assembly, and names will be included proportionally,” the letter states.
The five-year terms of CEC Sikandar Sultan Raja and two members of the ECP—Nisar Ahmad Durrani (Sindh) and Shah Muhammad Jatoi (Balochistan—ended on Jan. 26. Under Article 213 of the Constitution, their replacements are appointed after consultations between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, who send three names to the president by consensus.
If there is no agreement on the replacements, the premier and the opposition leader send their respective names to the speaker, who forms a 12-member parliamentary committee, having equal representation from the treasury and opposition benches. The committee will send one name from these names to the president for approval after consensus.