Amendments conveyed to govt: Opp wants 4 changes in anti-money laundering bill

ISLAMABAD: The opposition parties want at least four amendments in the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Bill that they have conveyed to the government.

The AML bill, which aims at meeting the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was passed by the National Assembly on Aug 24 but was rejected by the opposition-dominated Senate later. The first amendment relates to deletion of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from the schedule of the bill, removal of the NAB chairman from General Committee, to be made under it, and exclusion of the NAB from Section 2 (xviii), meaning the anti-graft agency should not be one of the prosecuting or investigation agencies under the proposed law, a senior opposition leader told The News sharing the their amendments. The reason he gave was that there are other organisations like the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for prosecution and investigation. The government can nominate any of them for the purpose. He said the NAB is already being consistently used as a tool to oppress the opposition. “It is not what we are saying; it’s Human Rights Watch, Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), Supreme Court and European Commission, which have held this view.” The second amendment proposed by the opposition parties said that the NAB law is exceptional which puts onus of proof on the defendant. This is against natural principles of justice and has been declared against Sharia by the CII, he said, adding that Section 9 of the NAB law as a part of AML bill ensures this and this is what the opposition parties want to be removed from the proposed law. The third amendment says that the government has made certain offences cognizable by the AML bill. “We want to omit this because it will mean that for arrest, the investigation officer will no longer be required to give in writing the reasons for detention and get approval of magistrate/competent court. This will once again allow arbitrary arrests, which is against the spirit of natural justice and the Constitution.” The opposition leader cited the fourth point which said that there are various amendments they submitted but weren’t taken up. “These pertained to ease of doing business. The bill puts further pressure on the businesses in terms of reporting and regulations and the economy which is already in shambles will completely crumble.”

Section 1 of the Schedule says the General Committee shall comprise the NAB chairman and secretaries of finance, interior, foreign affairs and law, FBR chairman, chiefs of the FIA and Anti-Narcotics Force, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) deputy governor, Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) commissioner, Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) director general, Director General, Military Operations, Director General, Counterterrorism, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), another ISI official, FATF Cell Director General and any other member to be nominated by federal government. Of this composition, the opposition wants removal of the NAB from the general committee. Section 2 (xviii) defines investigating or prosecuting agency as the NAB, FIA, ANF, Directorate General of (Intelligence and Investigation) Customs and Inland Revenue FBR, provincial counterterrorism departments or any other law enforcement agency as may be notified by the federal government for investigation or prosecution of an offence under the bill. The opposition proposed that the NAB should be excluded from this section.

The bill has made certain non-cognizable offences cognizable, which the opposition parties have proposed to be deleted because, it says, this will lead to prolonged detention of the accused.