Deportation of immigration offenders: Pakistan to ink controversial pact with Europe

Pakistan is signing a controversial agreement with Europe, allowing deportation of its citizens (immigration offenders) gradually against market access, sources in Prime Minister Secretariat told Business Recorder. This agreement will be signed during the visit of President Pervez Musharraf to the United Kingdom (UK), according to which EU member countries would be asked to contribute towards a fund in Pakistan for rehabilitation of deported persons, sources said.
This unfortunate move was started in June last when the Ministry of Interior submitted a summary to the Cabinet, seeking permission for entering into negotiations on the draft agreements with the European Union, Italy and the UK, namely re-admission agreement with the EU, re-admission agreement with Italy and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on managed immigration between Pakistan and the UK.
The Cabinet had considered the summary and constituted a committee comprising Ministers for Interior, Foreign Affairs, Labour and Manpower, Commerce, Law and Finance to look into the issue comprehensively. The committee was to provide policy input for consideration of the Cabinet.
The Cabinet authorised initiation of the negotiations with European Union on the subject keeping all relevant aspects in view, particularly Pakistan's national interests.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sources said, said that the British government intimated its keenness to figure in the MoU in the joint statement to be issued during the President's visit to the UK.
MoU on managed immigration between Pakistan and the UK, proposed by the British government has been considered in consultation with other concerned Ministries and was agreed upon in general in the last meeting of the Pak-UK Joint Judicial Cooperation Working Group held in Islamabad on April 26-27, 2004, except the implementing arrangements to the MoU which were yet to be negotiated with the British side, sources added.
The government, however, sources said, decided to keep in view the following factors before implementing the arrangements.
i. The purpose of signing the MoU was to create a mechanism whereby UK could bypass its local legislation which it finds difficult to amend.
ii. The implementing arrangements include strict timelines for determining nationality of persons to be readmitted. Keeping in view local limited technical and manpower resources, Pakistan would not be able to confirm the nationality of persons to be re-admitted within the timeframe, in which case UK would repatriate them to Pakistan.
iii. With the conclusion of the MoU 100 Pakistanis categorized as immigration offenders will be sent back every month.
They said the cabinet committee in its meeting on August 13 last decided that the issue might, in the first instance, be examined at secretaries' level. Accordingly, the secretaries considered the matter and made recommendations with regard to the draft Agreement with EU.
The cabinet committee in its meeting held in the Ministry of Interior on October 29 considered the recommendations formulated by the secretaries of the respective Ministries and approved them. While adopting the recommendations, the committee once again laid particular stress on the following points while negotiating and proposed that efforts should be made to obtain following commitments from EU during the forthcoming negotiations:
i. Third country nationals and stateless persons will under no circumstances be readmitted in Pakistan.
ii. Six months timeframe will be required for verifying the nationality of persons to be readmitted.
iii. No one will be readmitted in Pakistan merely on the basis of prima facie evidence; and
iv. The re-admission agreement will be applicable from the date of its ratification by both sides.
v. Each re-admitted person should be given specified financial support to enable him to resettle in Pakistan.
vi. Specific job quota for Pakistan nationals to be allocated by individual EU member states.
vii. EU should contribute towards a fund in Pakistan for rehabilitation of readmitted persons.
In addition to the above, the cabinet committee also laid particular emphasis on the following.
i. The principles proposed in case of re-admission agreement with EU should equally apply during negotiations with UK and Italy. (It may be mentioned that the cabinet has already accorded its approval for re-admission agreement with Italy).
ii. The legal migrants from Pakistan who later became out of status due to circumstances beyond their control should be given preferential treatment.
iii. During the Afghan war many Afghan nationals obtained forged documents including identity cards and passports from Pakistan. While verifying such cases additional evidence may be sought without relying on these documents alone.
iv. Pakistan should strive to gain maximum advantage from the European countries in the form of market access etc using signing of the above agreements as a bargaining chip. Particularly Pakistan should keep in view the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) negotiations due to take place in February 2005.
Finally, the Cabinet Committee directed that the concerned secretaries would meet again before the matter is submitted to the cabinet for consideration.
Sources said the secretaries met on November 23 and besides endorsing the above-mentioned recommendations, made the following proposal on the Pak-EU agreement.
"This agreement shall be without prejudice to the remedies and rights available to the concerned immigrants under the laws of the host country including International Law".
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that a joint statement on the conclusion of the President's underway visit to the UK will include a reference to the MOU on managed immigration. The secretaries have suggested the following formulation.
"To this end they agreed to expedite the process of negotiations for conclusion of the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on managed immigration," sources added.
With the signing of these agreement, hundreds of thousands Pakistanis would be deported by European countries which would result into substantial decline in remittances.