January 20, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 29, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 19: International legal experts have warned the government against rushing the proposed Anti-Money Laundering (AML) bill through the parliament in its present form as it is an imitation of the Indian law which is severely flawed.

“Eighty per cent of the Pakistani AML bill is copy of the Indian Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, which suffers from numerous technical flaws and operational problems,” said Ahmed Bilal Soofi, president of the Research Society of International Law (RSIL), a Pakistan-based think-tank on international laws and treaties.

Mr Soofi, along with a group of experts, was giving a presentation on the bill to the officials of various federal ministries, the Central Bureau of Revenue, Federal Judicial Academy, National Accountability Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency at the Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS), Islamabad, the other day.

In July-Aug 2005, he said that the Indians had faced a very tough time to defend their law in front of the Asia Pacific Group on Compliance in Australia, as it had not properly followed recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of G-8 countries on money laundering and the Vienna Convention or the Palermo Convention.

Every year, the Asia Pacific group files a report on the performance of AML laws of various countries in the region and international donors provided financial assistance to these countries on the basis of recommendations and evaluation of this report.

Mr Soofi said that if Pakistan followed the `heavily flawed’ Indian model its law would not be in compliance with international obligations and the country could thus be deprived of financial assistance from the donors.

“I think there are many examples in which we have benefited a lot from the Indian laws. But in this case, I am really sorry we are following a wrong track,” Mr Soofi observed.

The AML bill is presently being debated in the parliament. The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue has already held a session on the technical aspects and operational mechanism of the bill last week.

Officials of various ministries and departments and legal experts were of the view that the bill should not be rushed through the parliament but should rather be discussed threadbare in the light of country’s international obligations and commitments to terrorism and financial crimes.

Experts also opposed the establishment of special courts as proposed in the AML and said that it would only create complications. They said that the charge of money laundering should be framed either in the courts that tried predicate offences or in general courts as stand-alone charge. They said that other states had not encouraged setting up of specialised anti-money laundering courts. Besides, the FATF recommendations did not require such specialised courts, then why should Pakistan set up a parallel judicial system for prosecuting such offences.

They were of the view that the definition of money laundering in the bill was also flawed. The correct definition could be found in the Vienna Convention, definitions of which had been approved by the FATF.“The existing bill formulates a complex and confusing regime, both for rendering and obtaining assistance (from other countries) for investigating and prosecuting the act of money laundering,” said Barrister Taimur Malik, executive director of the RSIL.

He said that a provision in the bill regarding mutual legal assistance (MLA) with other countries should be replaced with article 46 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and article 18 of the United Nations Convention Against Trans-national Organised Crimes. These articles provide a framework for the mutual legal assistance in investigations, prosecutions and judicial proceedings of money laundering amongst various states.

Some CBR officials also demanded that the bureau should be given representation in the National Executive Council (NEC), which would be established once the AML bill is passed by the parliament. They said that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), NAB and FIA had representation in the council but the CBR, one of the important stakeholders, had been left out.