ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Interior has sought the Cabinet's nod on 29 Mutual Legal Assistance requests from Balochistan, FIA and foreign jurisdictions, official sources told Business Recorder.

Interior Ministry argued that the globalization of crime requires states to have a wide range of methods for international cooperation with countries from the same region (regional instruments) and from different regions of the world (international instruments). International cooperation is a process by which countries seek and provide many forms of legal assistance from and to other countries in criminal and other matters.

International cooperation may be carried out through a formal request of legal assistance from the Central Authority of one state to another state through which the requested authority is asked to perform one or more specified actions, like collecting the evidence or interviewing the witnesses, etc, on behalf of the requesting country. These requests are conventionally transmitted through diplomatic channels or via central authorities. The requested country is expected to respond at the earliest possible time.

Pakistan is committed to providing timely and quality international cooperation to the international community in relation to criminal matters.

To this end, new laws, policies and procedures have been instituted to ensure that authorities are able to respond to and seek quality requests for assistance. A standalone Mutual Legal Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act 2020 was passed and enacted on August 12, 2020. Section 3 of the Act regulates the procedure for rendering and soliciting Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters in two ways:- (i) Mutual Legal Assistance may be provided by Pakistan to a country on the principle of reciprocity reduced in writing (Bilateral Treaty); (ii) where the Federal Government considers it expedient to provide Mutual Legal Assistance in a criminal matter to a country which has not entered into an agreement with Pakistan (on the basis of reciprocity) and; (iii) Ministry of Interior being the Central Authority has received 02 MLA requests from Balochistan and 25 MLA requests from Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and 02 incoming MLA requests from foreign jurisdictions. According to Ministry of Interior these MLA requests are required to be presented before the federal government/Cabinet for approval for submission to Ministry of Foreign Affairs for onward reference to LEAs in Pakistan and foreign jurisdictions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021