ISLAMABAD JULY 27 (TNS): The draft of Elections Bill 2017 approved by the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms (PCER) proposes up to Rs0.1 million fines or three years imprisonment for lawmakers if irregularities are found in the details of their assets.
It also suggests that the membership of lawmakers should also be terminated if they fail to submit the details. The process of submission of assets’ details will also be changed. The lawmakers will be asked to submit the details of their assets by June 30 every year, the draft read.
In order to investigate any irregularity in the asset details submitted by lawmakers, the bill proposes additional powers for Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). It also says the lawmakers who fail to submit the details within 60 days will lose their assembly membership.
The bill read that ECP will first serve a show-cause notice to the lawmaker for membership termination and if the membership is terminated subsequently, the said lawmaker will have 30 days to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. All details regarding the assets of parliamentarians will be published on ECP’s website, it also said.
