Sharif’s passport

The government says it will not renew former PM Nawaz Sharif’s passport, which expired on Tuesday. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid followed up by offering to provide Nawaz with an emergency travel document if he requests one to return to Pakistan.

The government says anyone on no-fly list cannot have his passport renewed. Nawaz has been on the list since August 2018. He left the country in November 2019 after getting a medical exemption from the Lahore High Court, but has refused to return.

Nawaz claims he is still under treatment in the UK. In the interim, he has been making fiery speeches against the government. The IHC declared him an absconder last December.

While the government’s move is legal, it will still be viewed with suspicion.

For one, the fact that the government is not approaching Interpol or the British government for Nawaz’s return is a reminder of how problematic the cases against him are. As a general rule, Interpol does not accept cases it determines to be politically-motivated.

The government may well fear that the rejection of an Interpol warrant would serve as vindication for Nawaz, who could use it to continue claiming that his conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Similarly, filing an extradition case would be fairly straightforward, but it would require presenting evidence that would stand up in a British court.

This is because countries usually require proof of a crime under their local or national laws before extraditing anyone. Meanwhile, since Nawaz has no foreign nationality, Pakistan would be violating the UN Charter if it tried to rescind his nationality and make him stateless.

And given that British authorities ruled out deportation after rejecting a request from Pakistan last year, it seems inevitable that they will grant him extended leave to stay — without which he would become eligible for deportation.

That takes us back to square one. Nawaz will keep giving speeches and claiming he is sick while the government avoids embarrassment by ignoring the legal route to bring him home.