INTERIOR Minister Rana Sanaullah has said there are nearly 3,000 people on the Exit Control List and the government has now made a policy which has been approved by the federal cabinet which says that the names of people on the ECL will be deleted after a stipulated period if there is no concrete evidence to keep them barred from travel. The interior minister said that various other restrictions on travel for citizens are being reviewed as well, and people on such lists will also be taken off them if there is no reason to retain them. This is a welcome decision because it proactively addresses an issue that has festered over years at the expense of the citizens. Thousands of Pakistanis have suffered travel restrictions for reasons that carry very little weight. Often people end up on the ECL because they find themselves on the wrong side of the authorities, or if they become victims of political rivalries and persecution. Such are the ways of the government that once someone’s name is added to the list it is extremely difficult to get it removed. As the interior minister acknowledged in his press conference last week, people have languished on this list for years without any recourse to justice. If the present government is successful in simplifying the procedure for the ECL, while adding the requisite checks and balances so that the list is not abused for political purposes, it would have done good service to the citizens of Pakistan.

However, this would require not just the changes made so far by the federal cabinet, but also stringent rules that make it difficult for the government of the day to slide back to the old days of political persecution. It might seem appropriate that Mr Sanaullah has made exceptions for those on the list who are wanted for serious crimes, but at the same time, it needs to be specified as clearly as possible why someone should be slapped with travel bans. The government should therefore swiftly complete this process of removing names from the ECL, and then inform the public about the status of various other ‘stop lists’ that exist and that curtail the fundamental right of the citizens to travel. It is time that all political parties agree not to abuse the ECL for their vested interests and to ensure that the reform undertaken now is sustained in the coming years.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2022