‘Lawfare’ being used as a tool against Pakistan: Farogh

Says Pakistan being subjected to lawfare to achieve political and economic goals ‘without any military war’

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Minister for Law and Justice Farogh Naseem has said that Pakistan was being subjected to ‘lawfare’ to achieve political and economic goals “without any military war”.

Addressing a seminar titled ‘Lawfare and Pakistan’ on Wednesday, the federal minister lamented that lawfare served as “both legitimate and illegitimate tool used as a weapon to force countries to surrender,” insisting that Pakistan was also a victim of the practice.

“We succeeded in implementing 26 of the 27-point FATF Action Plan. Yet the watchdog went on to keep the country on its grey list,” he said adding that Pakistan’s presence on the list stood in sharp contrast to the watchdog’s unfair treatment.

“Meanwhile, a man who was notoriously convicted by a court of mass murder in Gujarat ascended to power in India without eliciting any action [from the watchdog].”

“The adjudication of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav by the International Court of Justice is another example of this tactic,” the minister lamented. He pointed out that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Review and Reconsideration Bill was passed in view of the verdict of the international court.

“The opposition began to create a fuss wrongly accusing the government of becoming an advocate for the Indian spy.”

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"We had earlier agreed that there would be no arbitration on the refusal of either party. However, we still went to arbitration and we were fined. In the broadsheet agreement, a person was paid who was not legally entitled to it. All this is the result of our incompetence.”

He stressed the need for launching reforms in domestic law to improve international public relations. “We need to make the foreign office more efficient and dynamic, as well as identify the fault lines within it.”

Concurring with the law minister, Information and Broadcasting Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, speaking on the occasion, said lawfare was being weaponised against the country.

He said the capacity building of institutions was vital to counter the anti-Pakistan propaganda of inimical countries.

Fawad said the term ‘lawfare’ was coined after the Second World War. “Over 85 million people had lost lives in the Second World War, a new thinking emerged that the world could not afford such wars in future and the term ‘lawfare’, which could be interpreted as law and security strategy, was coined.”

The colonial and oppressive powers, he added, used the ‘lawfare’ to crush the subjugated people by using international law to achieve their ulterior motives. Many states had been using the ‘lawfare’ to damage the interests of their rival countries, the minister said.