British lawyers have expressed concerns over abolition of death penalty and said that the step would ignite fire where theologians and liberals will be at each other’s throats on “blasphemy law” and need to strengthen “fair trial” infrastructure will go down on government’s priority list.
The Association of Pakistani Lawyers (APL), a team of Pakistani-origin lawyers, solicitors, barristers, judges in the UK, condemned the announcement of British Home Secretary Theresa May and her Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik agreeing to deport all undesirable Pakistani immigrants back to their country and said that both governments cannot deny an individual’s right of international protection, fair trial and due process, which benefited in the past.
Talking to Daily Times, APL Chairman Barrister Amjad Malik expressed his reservations on ‘MOU’ between Pakistan and Britain and said that the arrangements on death penalty and forced repatriation must be made public. Malik said, “We again maintain our stand and reiterate that we are in favour of ‘amnesty’, not ‘forced removal’ of Pakistanis staying in UK for years.”
He said that it is not clear that all those Pakistani immigrants in the ‘backlog’ were free of risks of further detention and imminent removal and this memorandum is flawed as there are thousands waiting to be regularised in UK and deportation and or removal of only Pakistanis without due process will be discriminatory. He said it would also be against the basic human rights of those individuals some of whom are seeking protection under the Geneva Convention 1951 and European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) 1950.
It is the beauty of British law and judicial system to protect people who fear persecution for their long-held belief or reasons of race, colour, nationality or political association and or unfair trial, torture and ill treatment in their country of origin. The abolition of death penalty will ignite fire and a new debate, Malik added. He was of the view that the British government must address the issue of current backlog consisting of existing failed asylum seekers, overstayers, and families with children living in Britain to regularise them rather than removing them.
Rehman Malik should and must press his British counterpart for regularisation of those immigrants, he said.
The APL chairman said, “We will welcome a task force tackling human trafficking as ‘traffickers’ in Pakistan are walking free with impunity and media has exposed several incidents recently.” Malik also welcomed the intelligence-sharing mechanism to combat terrorism in the wake of Olympics to avert any untoward incident or scare in the capital but will strongly object to deportations of many thousand Pakistanis.
He supported the idea that British Home Secretary Theresa May should consult with all stakeholders and chalk out a strategy to bring all those in the immigration record who have long been working in our “black economy” as slaves.
The APL looks forward to a statement from both British premier David Cameron and the Pakistani prime minister ensuring that any changes to the immigration system will operate in a fair, transparent and judicious manner, while protecting and promoting the competitive position of successful UK businesses and compliance with basic human rights of the individuals duly protected by the Geneva Convention 1951 and European Convention on Human Rights 1950, he said.
Source: Pakistan Daily Times, Jul 2012
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