EC reconstitution : Eminent citizens suggest law
and other election commissioners following constitutional stipulation. They made the suggestion as the search committee formed by the president on January 25 held talks with them at the Supreme Court Judges Lunge. ‘Most of the invited dignitaries suggested that the search committee recommends the enactment of law on appointment of the chief election commission and other election commissioners,’ Dhaka University supernumerary professor Abul Kashem Fazlul Haque told New Age emerging from the meeting. ‘We have suggested the enactment even if it takes time and delays the reconstitution of the commission,’ he added. Former High Court judge Abdur Rashid, former Dhaka University vice-chancellors AK Azad Chowdhury and SMA Faiz, Dhaka University professor emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury, former chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda, former election commissioners Muhammed Sohul Hussain and Muhammad Sakhawat Hussain, rights activist Sultana Kamal, also former caretaker government adviser, local government expert Tofail Ahmed, former inspector general of police Nurul Huda and Citizens for Good Governance secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar attended the meeting that continued for about two hours.
Meeting sources said that the invited dignitaries also suggested that a three-member Election Commission should be formed instead of the existing five-member one saying that it would ease the commission’s decision making. They also urged the search committee to take initiative to make public the names the committee would recommend for the commission along with the reasons for the recommendations, the sources said. Emerging from the meeting, Sultana Kamal told reporters that they urged the search committee to recommend people capable of managing field-level administration. She said that the Election Commission could act neutrally if the political parties performed responsibility for ensuring a violence-free and acceptable election. Cabinet secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said that the search committee took note of the suggestions the eminent citizens made. He said that the search committee also decided to hold talks with five more eminent citizens – former chief election commissioner M Abu Hena, senior lawyer Rokanuddin Mahmud, daily Samakal editor Golam Sarwar and daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam. The search committee, led by Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain of the Appellate Division, selected the five people to share views with them at the same venue on Wednesday, the cabinet secretary said. He also said that the search committee would sit again today while 31 registered political parties were asked to submit five names each for the commission by 3:00pm today. On January 25, president Abdul Hamid formed the six-member search committee asking it to recommend two names against each positions of the commission — the chief election commissioner and four commissioners — in 10 working days. The tenure of the incumbent chief election commissioner and four election commissioners, who were recommended by the previous search committee led by Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, would expire within mid-February. The president received proposals from 31 political parties during his talks with them between December 18, 2016 and January 18, 2017 on the reconstitution of the commission. Twenty of the parties proposed enactment of a law on the appointment of the chief and other election commissioners saying that the president had to make the appointment under the provisions of a law as stipulated in the constitution. No such law has yet been enacted since the adoption of the constitution in 1972.
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