INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATION TO COMBAT TERROR FINANCING, AND VIRES AND IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISM OF LAWS REGARDING CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS

ABSTRACT:

The article discusses the international obligation of Pakistan under the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force for combating terrorism and terror financing trough effective regulation of non-profit charity organizations. A brief overview of the establishment of an inter-governmental body of the Financial Action Task Force and its recommendations for the implementation of its mandate has also been provided while a detailed discussion of the provincial laws on the subject of non-profit charity organizations in the light of the constitutional provisions have been made.???

INTRODUCTION:

The article starts with the brief history of establishment and mandate of the Financial Action Task Force and obligation of Pakistan to implement its recommendations. It also deals with the history of establishment of charitable organizations in Pakistan, their legal character and the laws under which those bodies have been established. Claim has been made in the article that all the charity organizations are corporations in the eye of law and to establish this fact a precise history of concept of corporation under Roman civil law and English common law as well as its development over the period of time till today has also been considered in this essay.

The provisions of Punjab Charities Act, 2018 has been taken into consideration in order to see that whether this Act has been promulgated within the legislative competence of the provincial legislature on the touchstone of the constitutional provisions and then the implementation mechanism as adopted by the provincial Executive under the provincial charities laws has been taken into consideration. ?

HISTORY:

The Financial Action Task Force[1] (the “FATF”) is an inter-governmental body comprising 37 member States and 2 regional organizations as full members while a number of inter-governmental organizations are its associate members. At the time of its inception, the mandate of FATF was to develop measures to combat money laundering, however it expanded its mandate to incorporate efforts to combat terror financing in October 2001. In February 2012, the FATF adopted its present recommendations (the “FATF standards”) to ensure a coordinated global response for eradicating the menace of money laundering and terror financing. Pakistan, being a member of Asia/Pacific Group of Money Laundering (“APG”) (an associate member of FATF) is under an international obligation to implement the FATF standards within its jurisdiction. Since June 2018 Pakistan has been placed on FATF gray list, which means that it is under increased monitoring of FATF in order to check its progress on the implementation of the FATF standards.[2]

As per recommendation 8 of the FATF standards the countries are required to review the adequacy of laws and regulations that relates to non-profit organizations (the “NPOs”) so that funding to those NPOs may properly be regulated and chances of use of those funds for money laundering or terror financing may be minimized.

Apart from other recommendations of the FATF standards, Pakistan is required to comply with recommendation 8 mentioned above and in this regard all the provincial legislatures of Pakistan have promulgated Acts for regulating the charity organizations, providing therein mechanism of regulation, collection, disbursement and audit of funds and donations received by the charity NPOs and these provincial laws are subject of discussion of this piece.

RECOMMENDATION 8 AND PAKISTAN’S RESPONSE:

The recommendation 8 of the FATF standards which is relevant for our discussion is reproduced hereunder for ready reference:??

8.? ? ? ? Non-profit organisations:

Countries should review the adequacy of laws and regulations that relate to non-profit organisations which the country has identified as being vulnerable to terrorist financing abuse. Countries should apply focused and proportionate measures, in line with the risk-based approach, to such non-profit organisations to protect them from terrorist financing abuse, including:

(a) by terrorist organisations posing as legitimate entities;

(b) by exploiting legitimate entities as conduits for terrorist financing, including for the purpose of escaping asset-freezing measures; and

(c) by concealing or obscuring the clandestine diversion of funds intended for legitimate purposes to terrorist organisations.

The above quoted recommendation has also been interpreted through interpretive notes[3] and, while relying on same and the plan given by the FATF, all the four provinces has promulgated their Acts in order to comply with the recommendation 8 supra so that a proper check may be placed on the charitable NPOs. It would be examined in this article that whether the legislation made by the Provinces and the mechanism of implementation prescribed in the said legislation is lawful and effective as per our constitutional scheme?

PROVINCIAL CHARITIES LAWS:

The first legislation on the subject was passed by the province of the Punjab through the Punjab Charities Act, 2018 while the other three provinces passed their Acts on the same subject in the year 2019. As the scheme of all the provincial laws and the mechanism for the regulation of charity organizations are more or less same, so instead of discussing the provisions of all four Acts, only the Punjab Charities Act, 2018 and its provisions would be discussed and analyzed for the purpose of this treatise and the same analysis would be applicable on the laws of the other Provinces.????????

THE PUNJAB CHARITIES ACT, 2018:

The Punjab Charities Act, 2018 (the “Charities Act” or "Act") came into force on March 8, 2018 wherein a complete mechanism for regulation of charity organizations has been given. The most important aspect of the Charities Act is that it has prescribed the mode and manner of registration of existing charitable NPOs under laws relating to incorporation of NPOs as well as the NPOs which may be established in future under those laws, however, the registering authority under the Act has no independent authority to incorporate or register any NPO which has not been incorporated under the law relating to the incorporation of NPOs.[4]

NPOs REQUIRED TO BE REGISTERED UNDER THE ACT:

Which NPOs are required to be registered under the Charities Act? The answer lays in Section 2 (e) which reads as under:

(e)? ? ? ? “charity” means any association of persons which is established for a charitable purpose and includes the following:

(i) ? ? ? an organization registered under the Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies (Registration and Control) Ordinance, 1961 (XLVI of 1961);

(ii) ? ? an organization registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (XXI of 1860);

(iii)? ? an organization registered under the Companies Act, 2017 (XIX of 2017) or under any other law for the time being in force;

(iv)? ? an organization registered for charitable purposes under any law for the time being in force; and

(v)? ? ? a public or private trust.

So every charity organization registered in any of the laws mentioned in the above provision as well as all public or private trusts established for charitable purposes are required to be registered under the Charities Act. As per Section 12 read with Sections 18 and 19 of the Charities Act, every charity organization is required to be registered with the registering authority within such period as determined by the government and without such registration and proper sanctioning by sanctioning authority, no organization may solicit charitable funds.

There are some issues which legal community is raising like, over or excessive regulation of the charity organizations who are required to comply with not only the requirements of laws under which they have been incorporated or registered but also the requirements of the Charities Act and on this ground some lawyers are of the view that the Act is a bad law and it needs to be strike down by the Courts.

Another objection on the vires of some of the provisions of the Charities Act are being raised on the touchstone of Article 17 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 (the “Constitution”) whereby the right to form an association has been given constitutional protection. It is being argued that the provisions of Section 8 of the Act which authorizes the Charity Commission to appoint charity trustee and Section 9 of the Act which gives power to the Commission to get an inquiry conducted in the affairs of the charity organization is undue interference in the affairs of organization which is against the mandate of Article 17 of the Constitution.

The proponents of the above arguments are vociferously claiming that the Charities Act is not workable under the constitutional scheme and the same needs to be struck down, but in my view the primary and foremost issue in the whole discussion is the legislative competence of the legislatures (federal or provincial) to promulgate law on the subject and subsequent execution of its provisions.

LEGISLATIVE COMPETENCE:

In Pakistan, the legislative power of the State is exercisable by the federal or provincial legislatures within the sphere allocated to them respectively under the Constitution. Under Article 141 of the Constitution, subject to constitutional limitations, Parliament being federal legislature has the authority to make laws for the whole or any part of the country as well as laws having extra territorial operation while a Provincial Assembly being provincial legislature has the authority to make laws for the whole the Province or any part thereof.

As per Article 142 of the Constitution, the federal legislature has exclusive power to legislate on the matters mentioned in the Federal Legislative List (the “federal list”) and concurrent power with the provincial legislature to legislate with respect to criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence and in case of conflict between the provincial and federal law on any of these matters, the federal law would prevail over the provincial law[5], while all other matters falls within the legislative domain of provincial legislature.

Now, we have to see that which of the legislatures (federal or provincial) is competent to legislate on the matter relating to the NPOs established for the charitable purposes and in this regard we have to go through the entries of the federal list and if we finds any entry on the matter relating to charitable NPOs then only federal law can be promulgated for that matter and in case of absence of this matter in any of the entries of the said list, then only the provincial legislature may make law on that subject.??

FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE LIST:

If we examine the federal list then we would find certain entries which are of much relevance to the issue under discussion viz. entries 31, 32, 58 and 59 of Part I of the federal list and entry 13 of Part II of the same list. The first entry which is the most relevant, is entry 31 which relates to the incorporation, regulation and winding-up of corporations. One may say that the entry 31 is unrelated to the matter under discussion as it relates to incorporation, regulation, winding up of corporations and co-operative societies, while we are dealing with the charitable NPOs. So before discussing the entries mentioned above in detail it would be appropriate to verify whether the charitable NPOs are corporations as per law or not?

In my view the observation that the NPOs are not corporations is the result of a misconception about the concept of corporate bodies/corporations and I would try to explain why all the NPOs fall within the definition of corporations.

CORPORATION:

There is a misconception not only within non-lawyers but even some lawyers are not very much clear on the concept of corporation. Many people believe that the corporation only means a company incorporated under the law relating to incorporation of companies like Companies Act, 2017, whereas the correct legal position is that a company incorporated under laws of incorporation is one of many kinds of corporations. For the proper understanding of the concept of corporate bodies we need to go through the precise history of the creation of corporations.

CORPORATIONS UNDER ROMAN CIVIL LAW AND ENGLISH COMMON LAW:

The Romans had the honor to invent the concept of corporations who formed some of the earliest societies of trades and professions under the civil law regime. The original idea of joining a number of persons into an immortal corporate body having perpetual succession underwent a substantial reformation under the common law e.g. the early civil law only recognized the corporation aggregate viz. a corporation formed by a number of persons and there was no concept of corporation sole which has been introduced by the common law.

Under civil law, there was no requirement of Emperor’s consent for the formation of a society and any number of persons could agree to form a corporation for a lawful purpose however, in the common law the consent of the Crown (either in person or in Parliament) is essential for the formation of a corporation which may be formed in any of the following manners:

ROYAL CHARTER:

As per common law, the Crown has the authority to incorporate, by a Royal Charter, any number of persons assenting to be incorporated with the specific authority to act within powers granted under the royal grant.[6]

INCORPORATION BY OR UNDER THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT:

The second method for the incorporation of corporations is the incorporation by statute.[7] The British Parliament can create a corporation either (1) by public general Act of Parliament[8] or, (2) by public general Acts of Parliament authorizing the members of proposed corporations to apply for its incorporation[9] or, (3) by special (namely local or personal) Act of Parliament[10] or, (4) under authority delegated by Act of Parliament[11].

Though common law still recognizes the prerogative power of Crown to grant royal charter, however the Crown now exercises this power as per the law promulgated by Parliament.[12]

CORPORATIONS IN PAKISTAN:

The process of incorporation of corporate bodies in Pakistan is practically similar to that of the present British law and, under the Constitution, the competent legislature has the power to create corporations in the manner discussed above in relation to the British Parliament. There are many laws in Pakistan which either themselves have created corporate entities or prescribed the manner in which a corporate body may be incorporated. There are a number of bodies which have directly been established by the legislature like provincial Boards of Revenue established under Section 3 of the West Pakistan Board of Revenue Act, 1957 and, many bodies which have been established by the government under the authority derived from a statute like National Electric Power Regulatory Authority created by Federal Government under Section 3 of the Regulation of Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power Act, 1997.

Parliament has also promulgated the Companies Act, 2017 which prescribes the manner in which a company can be incorporated and there are certain other laws made either by federal or provincial legislature which prescribe the mechanism for establishing and registering the corporate bodies through different statutes.

WHETHER CHARITABLE NPOs ARE CORPORATIONS OR NOT:??????

Although as per the history of corporation as discussed above, it is clear that the charitable NPOs as mentioned in Section 2 (e) of the Act are corporations for all intents and purposes as, in all cases where a number of persons join each other to form a legal entity with perpetual succession and the legal character of the said body is recognized under the relevant statute is a corporation as per law, however, it would be advantageous here to refer a judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in “Mrs. M.N. ARSHAD and others versus Miss NAEEMA KHAN and others”[13] in which the Hon’ble Supreme Court, after discussing the precise history of corporation gave an overview of incorporation of corporations in Pakistan in the following manner:

“5. In Pakistan Corporations are not created by a Royal Charter but they are incorporated either by a statute like the Karachi Port Trust, incorporated under the Karachi Port Trust Act, 1886, or by registration under a statute like companies under the Companies Act or association under the Societies Act or cooperative societies under the Cooperative Societies Act or a trust under the Trusts Act. However, corporations can also be created by an executive order under the authority delegated by an Act of the Parliament.”???

The above excerpt supports the view that every legal entity which has either been created by the legislature or, by government or any authority while exercising powers under a statute or, by incorporation under Companies Act or, by forming an association in shape of society or voluntary body of persons and getting itself registered under a statute or, public or private trust, falls within the definition of corporation.

Now, after the discussion about the concept of corporation I would take into consideration the entries of the federal list which are relevant for the present discourse??

ENTRY 31 OF PART I OF THE FEDERAL LIST:

As I have explained in the preceding paras that all the NPOs which have been defined as charities in Section 2 (e) of the Act are corporations in the eye of law so now it would be seen that how entry 31 of Part I of the federal list is relevant for the purpose of issue under discussion and it would be advantageous to reproduce the said for ready reference:??

“31. Corporation, that is to say, the incorporation, regulation and winding-up of trading corporations, including banking, insurance and financial corporations, but not including corporations owned or controlled by a Province and carrying on business only within that Province, or co-operative societies, and of corporations, whether trading or not, with objects not confined to a Province, but not including universities.”

The perusal of the above entry would show that matters relating to incorporation, regulation and winding-up of corporations, which are not owned or controlled by a Province and carrying on business within that Province or objects of whom are not confined to a Province, is within the exclusive legislative competence of federal legislature and any provincial law for the regulation etc. of such corporations would be void being violative of Article 142 of the Constitution. However, the provincial legislature is competent to legislate for the regulation etc. of the corporations which are either owned or controlled by a Province and carrying on business within a Province or which have been incorporated for the objects confined to a Province.

ENTRY 32 OF PART I OF THE FEDERAL LIST:

Entry 32 of Part I of the federal list reads as under:

“32. International treaties, conventions and agreements and International arbitration.”

As it has been mentioned above that Pakistan being member of APG, which organization is an associate member of FATF, is under obligation to abide by the FATF standards and this international obligation is a result of an international treaty/agreement, hence, the Parliament has the jurisdiction to promulgate appropriate law for proper implementation on FATF standards, however, this entry does not take away the power of provincial legislature to legislate on such matter which otherwise falls within its legislative competence, despite some international treaty or agreement and in my view, in case of conflict of provincial and federal law on such a matter, the provision of Article 143 of the Constitution would come into play and the federal law would prevail over the provincial law.????

ENTRY 59 OF PART I OF THE FEDERAL LIST:

This entry says that “Matters incidental or ancillary to any matter enumerated in this Part” which means that matters incidental or ancillary to mattress mentioned in entries 31 and 32 would also be within the legislative competence of the federal legislature.?

ENTRY 13 OF PART II OF THE FEDERAL LIST:

This entry authorizes the Parliament to legislate on “Inter-provincial matters and co-ordination”. If we talk about the charitable NPOs who have trans-provincial objects and functions and who collect their charitable funds from all over the country, their activities squarely fall within inter-provincial matters and the federal legislature has the exclusive authority to legislate about those NPOs.?

ENTRY 58 OF PART I OF THE FEDERAL LIST:

Entry 58 authorizes the Parliament to legislate on the “Matter which under the Constitution are within the legislative competence of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) or relate to the Federation.”

This entry has not only direct connection with entries mentioned above, rather it gives authority to Parliament to legislate on any matter which comes within the legislative competence of Parliament under any other provision of the Constitution or the matter which relates to the Federation. This entry has of great importance in the context of charity organizations who solicit funds not only from Pakistan but also get funding internationally (the “international charity organizations”) and legislation with respect to such organizations which have extra territorial functions can only be made by the federal legislature under Article 141 of the Constitution.??

WHETHER THE CHARITIES ACT IS VIOLATIVE OF ARTICLE 141 AND 142 OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE LIGHT OF ABOVE MENTIONED ENTRIES OF FEDERAL LIST??

In order to find the answer to the question highlighted above, we need to go through the provisions of the Charities Act and my precise survey of its provisions is as under.?

In my view, while enacting the Charities Act the provincial legislature was well aware of its constitutional mandate and limitations and it had not intended to promulgate the Act as a law regulating charity organizations having trans-provincial functions, rather it confined itself to the charities which are functioning only within Punjab.

Section 1 (2) of the Act has made it clear that it extends only to the province of the Punjab, that shows that the legislature while enacting the Charities Act had kept in mind Article 141 of the Constitution which authorizes the provinces to make law only for a Province or any part thereof and not beyond it.

The perusal of section 18 of the Act clearly demonstrates that the Commission shall be competent to register a charity whose operations extends to the whole of the Punjab or two or more districts, whereas registering authorities for the charities functioning within a District and a Tehsil shall be the Deputy Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner respectively.

Section 19 of the Act deals with the sanctioning of collection of charitable funds and it also clearly manifests that the Commission has the power to sanction the collection of funds from whole of the Punjab (not beyond the Province) while the Deputy Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner can sanction collections within a District and a Tehsil respectively.

The combined reading of the above provisions clearly evinces that the Charities Act has no trans-provincial application and it only regulates charity organizations and corporations functioning within Punjab, hence, the Act, as a whole is not against the authority of provincial legislature as per entry 31 of Part I of the federal list, however, in limited sphere a certain number of provisions of the Act which allow regulation of charity organizations registered or incorporated under federal laws may be ultra vires which aspect I would discuss in later part of the article.????

The entry 32 of Part I of the federal list, though authorizes Parliament to make laws with respect to matters relating to international obligations under international treaties and agreements etc. and but it does not mean, as already mentioned above that provincial legislature cannot legislate on a matter which is also subject matter of an international treaty or agreement if the matter falls within the legislative competence of provincial legislature. However, any law on such a matter having trans-provincial application can only be made by Parliament. Therefore, in my view the Charities Act, as a whole, is not violative of entry 32 of Part I of the federal list as well.??

As entry 59 of Part I of the federal list relates to incidental and ancillary matters mentioned in Part I of the list, therefore, the analysis of entries 31 and 32 ibid would be the determining factor about the legislative competence of the provincial legislature with respect to the Act and entry 59 ibid cannot be made basis for determining the vires of the Charities Act of its own independently.????

As entry 13 of Part II of the federal list relates to inter-provincial matters and co-ordinated and the provisions of the Act as discussed above only provides the mechanism of regulation of charity organizations functioning within a Province, therefore, the Act, as a whole cannot be declared as ultra vires under entry 13 ibid.

Lastly, entry 58 of Part I of the federal list gives authority to Parliament to legislate on any issue which comes within its competence as per any provision of the Constitution. It has already been stated above that this entry and Article 141 of the Constitution is of prime importance for regulating international charity organizations, however, the Charities Act does not explicitly deal with those charity organizations, therefore, the same is not ultra vires either under this entry or Article 141 ibid.???

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE ACT:

As we have seen that the provisions of the Charities Act clearly say that it is applicable on the charities functioning within Punjab, therefore, the Act, as a whole, is a valid piece of legislation, but the problem rests with the provincial Executive who is trying to implement the provisions of the Act not only on the provincial organizations but also on trans-provincial and international charity organizations which is beyond its constitutional mandate.?

As it has already been discussed above, in all four provinces similar laws have been made whereby charities functioning in every Province are required to get themselves registered with the concerned authorities and to collect funds only after the approval of the sanctioning authorities meaning thereby, the trans-provincial and international organizations would be required to get themselves registered in all four provinces and Islamabad Capital Territory (the "ICT") and obtain sanction orders for collection of funds from five different authorities and these organizations would be answerable to five different regulatory authorities.

It is legally possible that one trans-provincial and international charity organization would be registered in one or more provinces while the authority of any one of the Provinces or ICT would deny its registration. Such an anomalous situation has been created by the provincial Executives who are trying to regulate the affairs of trans-provincial and international charity organizations under provincial laws which are beyond their constitutional authority.

REGULATION OF TRANS-PROVINCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS:??

The framers of the Constitution were well aware of the issues regarding corporate organizations functioning beyond provincial limits, therefore, they authorized only the federal legislature to regulate the affairs of such corporate bodies by law making process, so that they may smoothly function under a single federal law and under the supervision of a single regulatory body. So as per entries of the federal list and other provisions of the Constitution as discussed above, Parliament may promulgate a federal charities law for regulation of these organizations or to amend the existing federal laws under which these organizations have been registered and only thereafter the Executive may be in a position to regulate their affairs regarding registration and collection of charity funds etc.

SUI SOUTHERN GAS COMPANY VS. FEDERATION OF PAKISTAN:

In Sui Southern Gas Company vs. Federation of Pakistan [14] the Hon’ble Supreme Court has declared that provinces cannot regulate any trans-provincial organization through a provincial legislation on the matter relating to international treaties and agreement on the touchstone of entries 32, 58 and 59 of Part I and entry 13 of Part II of the federal list, however, entry 31 of Part I of the same list has not taken into consideration by the Hon’ble Court. The ratio of this judgment is squarely applicable on the issue under discussion and the only way forward for the State for regulation of trans-provincial and international charity organization is to make federal legislation on the subject.?

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT WHICH AUTHORIZE TO REGULATE AFFAIRS OF CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS INCORPORATED UNDER COMPANIES ACT, 2017:

The Companies Act, 2017 as well as the previous law on the subject i.e. the Companies Ordinance, 1984, is a federal law which has been promulgated by Parliament (while exercising its authority under entry 31 of the federal list ibid) for the purposes of the incorporation and regulation of trans-provincial companies and all the companies incorporated under the Companies Act, 2017 are deemed to be trans-provincial companies. So Section 2 (e) (iii) of the Charities Act whereby the provisions of the Act have been made applicable to the companies registered under the Companies Act, 2017 or any previous law on the subject is ultra vires the Constitution.

ORGANIZATIONS REGISTERED UNDER SOCIETIES REGISTRATION ACT, 1860:

Section 2 (e) (ii) of the Charities Act says that the organizations registered under Societies Registration Act, 1860 (the "Societies Act") are charities for the purposes of the Charities Act and the provisions of the Act are applicable to such organizations. This provision is not invalid or ultra vires but the provincial legislature has overlooked an important issue while enacting this provision i.e. the Societies Act is a provincial as well as a federal law and the Charities Act is only applicable to the societies registered under provincial law and not to societies registered under federal law. The societies with trans-provincial objects and functions are registered and regulated under the federal Societies Act[15] whereas the societies registered with objects related to a Province are registered and regulated under provincial Societies Act[16]. So the trans-provincial societies registered under Societies Act are not subject to the provisions of the Charities Act and demand by the provincial legislature in this regard is beyond its constitutional command.

PUBLIC OR PRIVATE TRUSTS: ????

?As per Section 2 (e) (v) of the Charities Act, all public and private trusts are charities on which the provisions of the Act apply. Before the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the matter relating to "trusts and trustees" was mentioned in entry 10 of the Concurrent Legislative List (the "concurrent list") whereby the provincial and federal legislatures had concurrent power to legislate on the matter mentioned in the concurrent list. After the abolition of the concurrent list after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, all the four provinces have promulgated trust laws and the previous federal trust law i.e. Trust Act, 1882 has been repealed[17].

The problem with the provision about public and private trust is the same as that of societies registered under the Societies Act. There are number of trusts in Pakistan which have trans-provincial functions and objects and the same cannot be regulated under a provincial laws for the reasoning already discussed above, therefore, the provision of Section 2 (e) (v) of the Charities Act is not applicable on trans-provincial trusts and they can only be made answerable for their acts and functions under a federal law.

CONCLUSION:

In the light of above discussion the following conclusion may be drawn:

i. The Punjab Charities Act, 2018 and all other provincial Charities Act are valid laws, however, their provisions relating to the companies incorporated under the Companies Act, 2017 are ultra vires the Constitution.

ii. The provisions of the Charities Act relating to the societies, trusts and other organizations are applicable to the charity organizations which are functioning within a Province while the trans-provincial are international charitable organizations are not bound by the Charities Act, hence, they are beyond the reach of provincial Executive.

iii. In order to bring the trans-provincial and international charity organizations within regulatory control with respect to their charitable functions, Parliament needs to make charities law or to introduce appropriate amendments in already available federal laws under which these organizations have been registered.

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[1] FATF was established at the G-7 Summit in Paris in 1989.

[2] https://www.fatf-gafi.org

[3] https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/pdfs/FATF%20Recommendations%202012.pdf

[4] Kindly see Section 2 (e) and 12 of the Act.

[5] Kindly see Article 143 of the Constitution.

[6] Para 1233 of the Halsbury’s Law of England, Fourth Edition, Volume 9.

[7] Para 1245 of the Halsbury’s Law of England, Fourth Edition, Volume 9.

[8] Municipal Corporations incorporated through Municipal Corporations Act, 1882 are created by general Act of Parliament.

[9] The Companies Act, 2006 (UK) is the law which authorizes the members of proposed corporation to apply for its incorporation.

[10] Such as railway and canal companies and other companies providing services of quasi-public nature.

[11] Incorporation of corporations through delegated authority under the Act of Parliament is relatively unusual.?

[12] For the detailed discussion on the history on the subject of corporations, kindly see Chapter 18 of the Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book I of Rights of Persons by William Blackstone.

[13] PLD 1990 Supreme Court 612.

[14] 2018 SCMR 802.

[15] Federal Societies Act is available on this link administrator0dc721bb2bef23db45633e35e344ae27.pdf

[16] Punjab Societies Act is available on this link https://punjablaws.gov.pk/laws/1.html#_ftn2

[17] The Balochistan Trust Act, 2020 has repealed the Trust Act, 1882 only to the extent of Balochistan whereas the Punjab Trust Act, 2020 has repealed the Act of 1882 as a whole which, in my view, is beyond the competence of provincial legislature.