ECP suspends membership of 318 lawmakers over assets declaration

The Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday suspended membership of 318 lawmakers from the upper and lower Houses of the parliament.

Lawmakers whose membership was suspended include Pir Sabir Shah, Fawad Chaudhry, Farogh Naseem, Farrukh Habib, Birjees Tahir, Zartaj Gul, Amir Liaquat, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Noorul Haq Qadri, Amir Kayani, Muhammad Ayub, Hasil Bizenjo, Taj Afridi and others.

A total of 70 MNAs, 12 senators, 115 Punjab MPAs, 60 MPAs from khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 40 Sindh MPAs and 21 from Balochistan were suspended by the ECP.

On January 2, the Commission released a list of nearly 600 members of parliament and four provincial assemblies for their failure to submit the details of their assets and liabilities and those of other members of the family.

Under the law, all the legislators are required every year by December 31 to file the related documents to the electoral body, which has the mandate to carry out scrutiny of the same, if it deems fit and find discrepancies. On non-compliance, the ECP bars them from performing their duties as legislators and their membership can be restored on compliance with the legal requirement.

The members of the federal cabinet, who have not been able so far to comply with this requirement, can be barred from performing their official duties. The Election Commission, traditionally, gives two more weeks to the legislators besides the deadline and after that the names of non-compliers are notified and the relevant legislatures are moved to bar them from attending sessions.