XN000022-1995-02-09 — Page 7

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Nominations Advisory Committee to be set up

The Boundary and Election Commission (BEC) is to set up a Nominations Advisory Committee to provide advice to intended candidates for ascertaining their status well before an election.

The committee will also provide returning officers with timely and impartial advice, thus ensuring consistency in their decisions on the validity of any nominations in which they have doubts.

To provide for the setting up of the committee, the BEC has made the Boundary and Election Commission (Nominations Advisory Committee) Regulation to be gazetted tomorrow (Friday).

A BEC spokesman said the regulation was made in response to the public views and comments received in the last District Boards elections in September.

The proposal to set up the committee is contained in the BEC Report on the 1994 District Board Ordinary Elections submitted to the Governor on December 16 last year, which was made public on January 27.

The spokesman said there were complaints in the September elections that a prospective candidate could not obtain definitive advice on his qualification for candidature until the returning officer ruled on the validity of his nomination paper.

The candidate could have incurred a lot of time, effort and expenses well before the start of the nomination and these might be wasted if the returning officer eventually ruled his candidature invalid.

The regulation provides for the appointment by the BEC of one or more such committees. Each committee will consist of one member. He will be someone with professional or academic qualifications in law.

The functions of the committee are to provide free advice to:

any prospective candidate on whether he is qualified to be, or disqualified from being, nominated as a candidate in respect of a geographical, functional or election committee constituency election;

and

any returning officer on whether a candidate for an election or by- election is qualified to be, or disqualified from being, so nominated in respect of that election or by-election.