Voting rights for overseas Pakistanis?

Dubai - Due to lack of an adequate infrastructure, overseas Pakistanis couldn't exercise their franchise in the 2013 polls

Will Pakistani expats across the globe get their right to vote in the 2018 polls? 
On Friday, the Supreme Court (SC) accepted 16 petitions regarding voting rights in the elections by overseas Pakistanis.
A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar and comprising Justice Musheer Alam and Justice Sajjad Shah, will take up the case on January 10, the Dawn reported.
Members of the civil society have filed their petitions, in which they have urged the state to put in place an infrastructure which can facilitate voting rights for those Pakistanis - at least 8 million - who live abroad.
In 2013, the then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry had ruled that no legislation was required to give voting rights to overseas Pakistanis and went on to say that elections could not be termed free and fair unless expats were allowed to vote, the report said.
Chaudhry had asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to ensure that overseas Pakistanis are able to participate in the elections.
But due to lack of an adequate infrastructure, overseas Pakistanis couldn't exercise their franchise in the 2013 polls.
Two months back, the commission made it clear to a parliamentary committee that Pakistani expats won't be able to vote in the 2018 general elections.
On Friday, the fresh petitions were accepted by the Supreme Court. A day before that the ECP had submitted a report to the National Assembly, admitting that the trial methods used by the body for overseas voting did not prove to be effective, the newspaper report said.
The commission revealed that postal ballots and televoting in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Bradford, Dubai, Riyadh and New York were tried and tested.         
 
 

• Pakistan