Noman Mosharef :
The Election Commission’s (EC) initiatives to reform laws of The Representation of the People Order (RPO), delimitation of constituencies, registration of political parties and conducting of local body polls are at a snail’s pace.
After taking oath in 2017, KM Nurul Huda Commission had disclosed the roadmap to reform mentioned laws. The Commission formed a law reform committee with Commissioner Kabita Khanam as the head.
The committee took the initiative to repeal ‘The Delimitation Ordinance-1976′ and enact delimitation of constituencies Act-2017’ from the very beginning ahead of the 2018 parliamentary elections.
For this, the committee also hired experts by paying high salary. But there were no outcome despite lot of meetings and various reform proposals. Later, EC has organised 11th parliamentary election in 2018 under previous law. After election there were no visible activities about the delimitation of constituencies.
On the other hand, EC took initiatives to abolish The Representation of the People Order, 1972 and newly introduced ‘RPO Law-2020’. The committee drafted a bill and received the political party’s opinion.
Almost all political parties’ including ruling party and stake holders argued about the law. As a result, EC has moved their decision.
Besides, EC took initiatives for formulation of ‘Political Parties Registration Law-2020’ and ‘Conducting of local body polls law-2020’. EC has invited all political parties to give their opinion about the laws. But no political parties gave response to the EC’s urge. So, uncertainty remains.
EC’s another law on the ‘CEC and EC’s salary, allowance, pension and other facilities 2020’ is at a snail’s pace. The committee
prepared a draft proposal and sent to the government. The law did not get government nod yet.
Over the issue EC Commissioner and also the head of the law reform committee Kabita Khanam said the amendment to the Representation of the People Order has been sent to the Law Ministry after approval by the Commission. There it is in the vetting stage. After vetting, if other process is completed, maybe it will pass. And we don’t pass the law, the Parliament does it. As a result, it is not possible to say when it will get government approve.
She said, we asked for the opinions from the political parties after the draft. The decision of a separate law has been cancelled due to non-response from them.
