* Commission to send cases to high court registrars
* Culprits may face three years imprisonment, seven-year election ban

By Irfan Ghauri

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan is likely to unveil today (Friday) its final course of action against lawmakers whose degrees have been declared fake. The commission is going to nominate its officials, who will supervise the whole procedure in line with Supreme Court directives.

The government, many believe, is now using delaying tactics to stop the Higher Education Commission (HEC) from presenting its final report on fake degrees to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Education by involving the education and law ministries in the process.

At the same time, the ECP, an autonomous body under the constitution, is also under pressure to clarify what action it is going to take against lawmakers whose degrees have been invalidated by the HEC.

“The policy that is most likely to be unveiled on Friday will provide a procedure which would be followed during the entire process,” sources in the ECP told Daily Times.

The sources said that ECP had decided that it would send the cases of fake degree holders to the registrars of provincial high courts, who in turn would order for the lawmakers to be tried in the sessions courts of their respective constituencies. However, this would be done after the HEC presents its final report about the lawmakers’ degrees to the ECP.

After the sessions courts declare their decisions, the accused will have the option of challenging the verdicts in the high courts and then in the Supreme Court. The process will likely drag on for months before the fate of these public representatives is finally decided.

The Supreme Court had given a three-month period to the ECP for deciding the issue.

Under section 82 of the Representation of the People Act 1976, an elected person found guilty of corrupt practices is punishable with imprisonment of up to three years.

Moreover, under the same law such people can be barred from taking part in elections for a maximum of seven years, starting from the date of conviction.

Section 100 of the act reads: “A person who has been convicted for having exceeded the limit of election expenses, or has been found guilty of any corrupt or illegal practice by a tribunal shall — if the commissioner makes an order to that effect — be disqualified for a period not exceeding five years.”.”

However, section 100(2) of the law states that a person convicted for an offence punishable under section 171-J of the Pakistan Penal Code would be disqualified for a period of seven years.

According to legal experts, lawmakers who resigned when their degrees were challenged in courts but were then re-elected, would also fall under the same category.

Over a dozen legislators have so far resigned before getting convicted when their degrees were challenged in the courts. Some of them have been re-elected.