Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Legislative body of the Upper House of Parliament on Monday approved an amendment in Representation of People Act according to which preventing women from casting a vote would be considered a corrupt practice.

The committee directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to prepare the draft law within a week and present it in the committee so that the proposed law should be presented in the Senate. The Amendment in Representation of People Act was done in Senate sub-committee on Parliamentary Affairs, which was held today in parliament house while Senator Farooq Hamid Naek was on the chair.

The committee unanimously proposed amendment in section 78-A-2 of Representation of Peoples Act and declared that “if someone stops a woman from vote or manages to stop women from casting their votes, it would be considered a corrupt practice and the Election Commission would have powers to take action against those responsible.”

The committee also approved another amendment in Section 103-AA of the law according to which decision of the Election Commission regarding women voting would only be challenged in the Supreme Court and the SC would decide the case within 30 days.

Discussing the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill 2016, introduced by Senator Sherry Rehman, Senator Farooq H Naek said amendments the in law were a very important issue and needed to be looked into carefully. The committee said full participation of women in election process would strengthen the democratic process.

A member of the sub-committee Senator Nawabzada Saifullah Magsi said that change in the law was an important milestone to ensure voting rights of women. The bill was moved by PPP Senator Sherry Rehman in Senate, which referred it to the committee.

According to the Bill, there have been numerous reports at every election in recent years whereby women voters have been restrained from voting in the election as a result of an agreement or understanding between different persons which have included politicians, persons representing political parties, the clergy and leaders of the community. This process of systemically disqualifying women is a clear violation of their fundamental rights and amounts to outright discrimination and negation of rights guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan. This bill seeks to address such barriers.

Moreover, the bill seeks to make available gender disaggregated data, as not only an effective, transparent and clear method of documentations, but also as a tool to identify gender break down of voting structures and to identify and understand the number of women voting, the issues they face, how to eliminate them. Given that consistent and regular data allows for effective monitoring of progress as regression, it is necessary that Pakistan ensures that this kind of data exists in Pakistan to enhance democratic structures and procedures.

This bill is principally aimed at ensuring that in any election, in any constituency, if less than 10 percent female voters have voted, the election commission of Pakistan shall declare the election of such constituency void, and order re-polling within 30 days of the declaration of the decision of the Commission.