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Judicial magistrates won't be in field

EC decides they will do the job from office

Staff Correspondent
The Election Commission (EC) has finally decided that judicial magistrates assigned to try electoral offences concerning the parliamentary polls tomorrow would do the job in their offices.
Even on die polling day, they will not move around in the constituencies where they are deployed to take into cognizance electoral offences for trial.
"There is no plan for mobile courts comprised of judicial magistrates," the EC Secretariat said yesterday In a circular sent to chief judicial magistrates.
Ealier, the establishment ministry had appointed 319 government officials as executive magistrates and vested them with the authority of running mobile courts for trial of polls offences.
But, as per the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), only judicial magistrates have the authority to try electoral offences.
The EC Secretariat had allocatedTk 8,000 per constituency to meet fuel cost of vehicles for executive magistrates. But it has refused to allocate any such funds for judicial magistrates, sources said.
A total of286judicial magistrates started doing their duties on Friday but they faced difficulties due to non-cooperation of district administration.
As the problems were brought to the EC's notice, it finally came up with its decision in this regard yesterday.
Sources said from the very beginning, the EC Secretariat was in favour of assigning executive magistrates to try polls offences. And without having the EC's consent, its secretary had sent a letter to the law ministry a few months ago asking it to include the title of Representation of the People Order (RPO) in the schedule of Mobile Court Ordinance 2007.
The law ministry acted in line with that letter, empowering executive magistrates to hold trial of electoral offences, the sources mentioned.
The EC decision to assign executive magistrates to try polls offences triggered legal controversy, and it sought the Supreme Court’s (SC) opinion on the matter. The SC viewed that only judicial magistrates can try polls offences.
The EC then assigned judicial magistrates to do the job.
Against this backdrop, many legal experts believe the administration, which greatly lost magisterial powers due to separation of the judiciary last year, now stands in the way of judicial magistrates trying electoral offences.