Prisoners abroad

Pakistan is a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963. This is an international treaty that defines a framework for consular relations between independent states. Although a consul is not a diplomat, they work from the embassies of the countries where they are stationed and they have two primary functions — to protect in the host country the interests of their countrymen and women, and secondly to further the commercial and economic relations between the two states. It is the former that is of particular concern.

On Friday December 15^th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Lahore High Court that there are 9,476 Pakistanis in foreign jails spread across 100 countries — a considerable number, all of whom whether convicted or awaiting trial are entitled to receive consular services. The Foreign Office maintains 116 embassies or consulates in 88 countries not counting multilateral entities such as the EU and the UN. A glance at the map indicates that most of the world is covered by Pakistani diplomatic and consular representation with the exception of countries in southern Africa and the NW of the South American continent. Thus it may be assumed that diplomatic and consular coverage is adequate.

It is thus something of a surprise to learn in the course of the hearing in Lahore that the government is unable to present a consular protection policy although it was said that the government “took steps to provide legal aid to the detained citizens.” Moreover, the government has been asked to provide such a policy on numerous other occasions, and the bench finally lost patience and ordered the government to present the policy by January 20^th. Considering the size of our overseas missions and the numbers of prisoners in foreign jails, it is reasonable to expect that the discharge of consular services to the vast Pakistani Diaspora — and not only prisoners — would have been formalised with a consular protection policy. This is not the diplomatic equivalent of rocket science, just baseline diplomatic best practice. We await the presentation of the policy on January 20^th 2018, but are not holding our breath.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2017.

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