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`Criminality & politics`

2015-08-21
APROPOS `Criminality and Politics in Pakistan` by Umair Javed (Augl7). The author cites a nexus between criminality (in a narrow interpretation meaning `corruption`) and politics. He prescribes a solution, to keep the corrupt from entering politics by putting in place strong scrutiny procedures.

How would the same `corrupt social class` responsible for devising legislature, frame the laws restricting themselves from entering parliament? One such example is the electoral law which calls for all parliamentarians to file`Assets Forms` with the Election Commission of Pakistan latest by September every year. Has the ECP --on its own, or otherwise-ever probed the compatibility between the assets declared and the actual living standards of any parliamentarian? The ECP is responsible only for conducting the elections or is it also responsible for ensuring elections to be fair? Isn`t it the ECP`s responsibility to devise a strategy for the proper scrutiny of every single statement/declaration filed including taxes paid by our parliamentarians to determine whether those are compatible with the assets they possess in their own name or in the names of their dependents? The Supreme Court of Pakistan, perhaps, gave wide powers to the ECP in the Workers` Party Case versus Federation of Pakistan by declaring that it can take all pre-emptive measures to ensure that elections are conducted as fairly as possible.

The Supreme Court has never reprimanded the ECP from going to any length in checkingthe actualassets.

If the Election Commission of Pakistan starts doing what the author has tried to convey in his article, the day is not far off when we shall have a parliament comprising honest public representatives.

Zaheer Khairpur