ISLAMABAD: The ministry of law and justice has proposed drastic changes in the Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) regime and empowered the interior secretary to send MLA requests to — and receive from — foreign countries.

The change in the regime was part of the 100-day agenda of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government.

According to the law ministry’s proposal: “Through the new statute, the federal government will appoint the interior secretary or any other officer of the government as the Central MLA Authority in keeping with the United Nations Conven­tion Against Corruption (UNCAC) and United Nat­ions Conventions Against Tra­nsnational Organised Crime.”

It clarified that the MLA regimes already available under the existing statutes should be kept intact, but the Central MLA Authority under the new statute would be focused with regard to sending and soliciting MLA requests.

The main reason for foreign governments not complying with Pakistan’s requests for asset or foreign asset recovery has been the non-availability of MLA law, the law ministry’s proposal said.

There are statutes such as the NAB Ordinance, FBR laws, Extradition Act, the SECP statute, the AML dispensation, PECA and the Anti-Narcotics laws which partly provide for MLA. However, the main complaint of the foreign governments is that there is no central authority which processes MLA requests made by foreign governments.

“The law ministry is hopeful that once the MLA law is passed it shall facilitate the stolen asset recovery from abroad and shall also remove one of the FATF objections,” the proposal read.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2018