In an interesting move to prevent ‘pre-poll rigging’, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Wednesday issued an order disallowing all electronic and print media organisations from featuring the pictures of political leaders in government-sponsored advertisements.
The chief justice said this while hearing a case pertaining to government-sponsored promotional material published or aired in the media. He said that self-promotion through pictures was a wrong approach. “The court prohibits the use of pictures in government ads in electronic and print media from this point onwards,” he remarked.
The chief justice made it clear to the provincial governments to stop spending taxpayers’ money on self-promotion through advertisements. “We would not allow the taxpayers’ money to be spent lavishly on political advertisements,” he said.
He also directed his remarks at All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) President Hameed Haroon, who was present during the hearing, and said, “You are a wise and principled man. In your opinion, is it appropriate to publish self-promotional material the way the incumbent government is doing?”
In response, Hameed said that APNS would whole-heartedly accept any decision taken by the court in accordance with the law. He also said, “It is wrong to promote any particular personality.”
The chief justice also made it clear that the court would refrain from becoming a party to disputes related to advertising campaigns in the media and overt support of some media organisations to the government.
The issue first came to notice of Chief Justice Nisar in late February after it was found that the governments of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were spending a lot of money on media advertisements.
He had said that it was not right to throw away the taxpayers’ money on self-promotion through advertisements. “Does this not qualify as pre-poll rigging?” he had questioned.
He had also remarked that though millions of rupees were being spent by the provincial governments to promote development projects, the ground realities were still more or less the same in most areas.
“The provincial governments should promote their work at their own expense only,” he had said.
