Special courts for expats

The Punjab government has recently decided to set up special courts in order to address, on a priority basis, a host of problems that the nine million strong Pakistani expat community has been facing in their country of origin. These problems mostly include illegal occupation on the plots of land they have purchased for constructing homes for their families. There are other problems like their investments in projects back home being in peril, documentation issues, and familial matters.

With regular courts in our country suffering from a huge backlog of cases, there was a longstanding demand of the expatriate community for a comprehensive legal mechanism whereby their complaints are dealt with on an urgent basis. In this context, a Model Police Facilitation Centre had been opened in Islamabad in October 2019. Before that an OPF Complaint Cell had also been established in June 2011. However, these initiatives did little to address the concerns of the expatriate community. Hence came the decision to set up special courts for overseas Pakistan in a move that must be highly welcomed.

Remember the Pakistani diaspora scattered in some 150 countries of the world make a significant contribution to the economy of the country. Overseas Pakistanis remit around $25 billion annually – an amount that equals about 5% of the country’s GDP and outnumbers its earnings through exports and foreign investments combined. Remittances from abroad have been the sole saving grace for our country when it comes to catering to the balance of payments situation.

While the special courts initiative is likely to contribute to easing the problems of the expat community, the government must also broaden the scope of its policies and strategies not just to facilitate them but also to involve them in national affairs. The need is to create a tight-knit overseas community that is a socio-political entity in its own right. For this, a human-centric approach should be adopted that incorporates the fundamental elements of “justice, social cohesion and business ethics”.