It’s not very often that the highest court in the land delivers an opinion on an extremely important matter and both sides, for and against the motion (ordinance in this case), claim victory. Yet that is precisely what has happened regarding the Supreme Court’s opinion on the issue of secret balloting in the upcoming Senate elections. While the honourable court maintained that the said election should be held in keeping with the constitution, which the opposition has taken as a blanket rejection of the government’s position demanding an open ballot, it also said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) could use latest technology to ensure transparent polling; and that secrecy of the ballot papers was “not final.”
The way the government interprets this is that technology can now be used to track votes, since it is now the only permissible way of checking corruption typical to the Senate election. Besides, Article 218 (3) empowers ECP to take all measures necessary to curb corrupt practices. Surely it follows then that since technology can now be employed to check corruption, and the only sure way of doing that is tracing votes, the SC’s view is about putting two and two together in light of the constitution to make sure that money plays no role, especially a very negative one, in the Senate elections.
It is unfortunate that the SC’s opinion, rather than putting the argument to rest once and for all, has done little if anything at all to end the government-opposition confrontation. And since this is the court’s view, not a judgment, the ECP is left in a fix. The court’s observation that secrecy is “not final” implies that the Commission would now have to incorporate innovations, like use of bar codes or other identifying features, that will make it possible to trace the votes back to the voters failing which the secrecy would indeed become final. If it adopts a rigid stance and makes excuses like shortage of time, etc, then it would be simply disregarding the SC’s observation, which carries weight even if it is not a binding ruling. The opposition’s celebration is justified to the point that the Senate elections will be carried out under Article 226 of the constitution, which means secret ballot. But now the SC’s opinion puts the ball in the ECP’s court.
