Editorial
Now, a free EC secretariat
More safeguards needed for it to act independently
IT appears that at last the Election Commission will be-gin to work as an independent body through severing its links with the executive branch of government. That should be cheering news for the nation. Demands for the EC secretariat to function independently in the interest of free, fair and transparent elections have been there for as long as one can recall. And those demands have had a direct link with the legacy upon which the Election Commission has so far conducted itself. In times of a presidential form of government, the EC was dominated by the President's Office. No change was discernible when a parliamentary system took over, for the EC then began to operate as an appendage of the Prime Minister's Office.
The move towards effecting a separation of the Election Commission from the executive, welcome as it is, may not guarantee full autonomy to the EC. In future political governments might take advantage of some of the gaps remaining in the proposed ordinance. It provides for a secretariat independent of PMO with separate budget and manpower requirement determined by the commission. The proposed ordinance leaves authority of making laws and rules in the hands of the law ministry. It is alright for the law ministry to formulate laws but unless the rules are framed by the commission implementation of the laws may be caught up in bureaucratic tangles.
Secretary of the commission will be on deputation from the government whereas it would have been better if the commission had a say in his appointment. There has been example in the past where secretary worked at cross purposes with the commission.
The power to control the secretariat is to lie with the CEC while its administrative head will be the secretary. The role of the commissioners should be well defined to allow team work.
Laws that accord independence of action to a body are one thing. Seeing them actually work in practice is quite something else. In the recent past, the replacement of the ineffectual Bureau of Anti-Corruption by a supposedly independent Anti-Corruption Commission did not yield the results the nation looked forward to until the present set of men at the ACC arrived following the imposition of the state of emergency last year. The case of the Parliament Secretariat, which was established in order for the law ministry not to interfere with its functions, remains a glaring instance of how organisational independence cannot by itself guarantee autonomy.
It is against such a background that certain safe-guards must be built into the system for the EC to work truly independently.
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