Cabinet to decide Maryam’s request today, LHC told

Bench expresses displeasure over statement that PML-N leader won’t be allowed to fly abroad

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) will once again take up on December 26 a petition of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz who seeks removal of her name from the no-fly-list and a one-time permission to go abroad to visit her ailing father, former premier Nawaz Sharif.

Maryam has moved the court for the second time.
Earlier, this month she had requested the court to remove her name from the Exit Control List (ECL)   and to order the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to return her passport.

On December 7, the LHC had referred Maryam’s request to the interior ministry and directed it to take a decision on it within seven days.

The PML-N leader, however, approached the court, on Dec 21 again as the government failed to decide her application despite passage of almost two weeks.

As the LHC division bench took up Maryam’s plea on Monday, the Additional Attorney General (AAG) Ishtiaq A Khan told the judge that the cabinet is likely to decide her matter on December 24 (today).

“The review committee [of interior ministry] has prepared its recommendations and forwarded them to the federal cabinet,” he said.

A member of the bench – Justice Anwaarul Haq Pannun – expressed displeasure over remark of a former federal cabinet member that the government will not permit the PML-N leader to go abroad.

Speaking to reporters in the federal capital, PTI leader Dr Babar Awan on Monday said Maryam’s application for removal of her name from the ECL had been rejected by the federal cabinet’s sub-committee that deals with such cases.

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“The sub-committee has decided against allowing a convict to leave Pakistan. There is no such provision in the law. If anyone wants this condition included then the matter will have to be taken up in parliament,” said Dr Awan.

Apparently referring to the statement, Justice Pannun said such statements were not appropriate. “It is not good when you have been granted seven working days but nothing was done despite passage of around two weeks,” he said.

Addressing the counsels of the PML-N leader, he said: “You could file a petition after going through decision of the cabinet being expected on December 24 (today).”

In her petition, Maryam told the court that her father’s health is critical and she is under unexplainable stress because of her inability to be with him at a time when he needed extra care.

She added that her father, Nawaz Sharif, is dependent on her.
She had contended that her name was placed on the ECL without notice, which is violation of her fundamental rights. She argued that the “so-called recommendations” of NAB were acted upon in a mechanical manner and without judicious application of mind in contravention of the law.

Maryam added that she had earlier filed a petition seeking the removal of her name from ECL and the court had referred the matter to a review committee for an appropriate order within seven days.

She complained that the cabinet had not decided the matter within the given time and the government was not responding to her lawyer.

A spokesperson for the law ministry also confirmed that recommendations as to whether Maryam’s name should be removed from the ECL or not have been drafted and would be presented before the federal cabinet during its meeting on Tuesday.

The recommendations prepared have been prepared by a subcommittee of the cabinet chaired by Federal Law Minister Farogh Naseem. The government will later inform the LHC about its final decision.