On December 1, the Supreme Court’s three-judge bench—Judge Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Yahya Afridi, and Justice Ayesha Malik—is expected to hear a constitutional appeal that requests a stay of the forcible deportation of citizens of Afghanistan.

An appeal seeking a restraining order against the forcible expulsion of Afghan people from Pakistan was filed with the supreme court earlier this month. The request was first denied by the SC registrar’s office, nevertheless, since it did not clearly state which public policy issues pertaining to upholding the Constitution’s fundamental rights were at issue.

The National Democratic Movement Chairman Mohsin Dawar and former PPP senator Farhatullah Babar were among the appellants who challenged these objections and pursued the case through an appeal, represented by Advocate Umer Ijaz Gilani.

The former PPP senator and others filed a case under Section 4 of the Citizenship Act, 1951, seeking a restraining order against the coercive deportation or harassment of individuals born in Pakistan who have a rightful claim to birthright citizenship. They also cited the Islamabad High Court’s decision in the Hafiz Hamdullah Saboor case from 2021.

The petitioners’ attorney contended that a forty-five-year-old Pakistani state policy of friendliness and tolerance towards refugees, asylum-seekers, and other migrants from the Afghan borders is effectively reversed by the “impugned directive” by the “apex committee” of the caretaker administration.

The plea argued that all asylum-seeking applications submitted by foreign nationals living in Pakistan should be registered, processed quickly, and decided upon by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partner organizations. This directive should be sent to the federal government.

The petitioners claimed that there is no way for the government’s policy to distinguish between illegal immigrants and citizens by birthright. A crackdown on “undocumented” Afghan nationals—basically, individuals who are seeking asylum in the nation but awaiting necessary paperwork—has been launched by the federal authorities.

Under the guise of tackling the problem of “illegal migrants,” the state has been attempting to forcefully remove approximately 1.3 million people since November 1, 2023, putting the onus of the nation’s escalating economic and security issues on them.

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