Staff Correspondent

Discussions are under way about who will be on the search committee responsible for selecting the members of the new Election Commission.

Law Advisor Asif Nazrul said it has already been decided who will be on the committee. The names of the panel members will be announced within a few days.

Under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment Act, 2022, a six-member search committee must be formed to appoint replacements.

An Appellate Division judge, nominated by the chief justice, will lead the committee.

A High Court judge named by the chief justice, the comptroller and auditor general, or CAG, the chairman of the Public Service Commission, or PSC, and two eminent citizens proposed by the president will be members of the group.

One of the two nominees picked by the president will be a woman..
Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed has already nominated a judge each from the Appellate and High Court divisions for the search committee, an official of the Supreme Court administration told bdnews24.com on Tuesday.

Among them, Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury is third in seniority in the Appellate Division and Justice AKM Asaduzzaman is second in the High Court Division.

Justice Zubayer is expected to become the chief of the search committee once the government approves it. The Cabinet Division will issue a notification to this end after completion of all formalities.
CAG Md Nurul Islam and PSC Chairman Mobasser Monem will become members of the panel due to their job status.

However, no information is still available about the president’s nominations for the committee.

The Cabinet Division will provide secretarial support to the search committee which will propose the names to the president for the formation of the new EC within 15 working days of formation.

The Election Commission of 2022 was the first to be appointed under this law. The president had formed the commission by selecting five out of the 10 names proposed by the search committee.

On Sept 5, a month after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime, the Kazi Habibul Awal-led commission, which oversaw the 12th national election, stepped down.

The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, has already introduced state reforms and said that an election date will be announced once a favourable democratic environment has been achieved.

Advisor Asif said the government’s journey toward elections has begun through the formation of the search committee.

At the Secretariat on Tuesday, he said: “The search committee is ready. As far as I know, it just needs the chief advisor’s signature -- he may have already signed. We should have confirmation by today or tomorrow.”

Addressing the 13th parliamentary election, Nazrul said, “This time, we will not hold a sham election. It will be an exceptionally fair, free, and impartial election.”