Law made easy by Aslam

Part I: History and background Diplomatic privileges and immunities are granted in order that the persons entitled to them may better perform their functions and not for the benefit of those persons . [1] Privileges and immunities to diplomatic envoys is a long-standing norm of international law. As mentioned in Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relation 1961 (VCDR), [2] ‘The establishment of diplomatic relations between States, and of permanent diplomatic missions takes place by mutual consent’. [3] The VCDR is one of the most widely based multilateral regime in international relations. [4] Whereas, the diplomatic immunity is respected and seen as a crucial element. In this regard it is considered as important as that ‘the first principle to become firmly established ...[is] that of diplomatic immunity’. [5] Furthermore, it is also an important factor to make better relations between two states, where governments and individuals, both wish their diplomatic agents to discharge t...

The law namely, Omani Nationality Law, promulgated by the Royal Decree 38/2014. [1]  The Omani nationality to be granted only once in a life time, [2] to any non-Omani applicant either man or woman who wishes to obtain the same. For a non-Omani man to submit an application for grant of Omani citizenship, the following conditions must be fulfilled, (i) that he must be residing in Oman legally for last 20 years; or he is residing in Oman for last 15 years, if married to an Omani woman,  (ii) the marriage took place with the prior consent from the Ministry of Interior, Oman; (iii) that there is a baby boy born from that wedlock; (iv) that he has not lived outside of Oman for more than sixty days continuously in a single year; (v) that he is able to read and write Arabic [3] ; (vi) that he is accompanied of sound character and good behavior; (vii) that he has never been convicted of any crime or has never been convicted of any offence in breach of trust, unless he has been re...

Hawala is defined as a system to transfer money across border  ‘…based on trust and operating through network based … on regional or ethnic affiliation rather than through banks and financial institutions’ . [1] In other words it is defined as a system which transfers money around the world without any actual money movement. [2] The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), quotes number of terms to refer to hawala, such as (i) as informal funds transfer ; (ii) alternative remittance; (iii) underground or parallel banking ; (v) a relationship; or (iv) intermediary banking. [3] In Arabic language, the term ‘hawala’ means ‘change’ or ‘transform’; by contrast, in Hindi or Urdu it refers to ‘trust’; the terms ‘hawala’ and ‘hundi’ are also used in India and Pakistan interchangeably. [4]   It is said that the hawala money transfer functions as a financial services provider in those remote parts of the world where normally the banking systems are unreachable. [5] Besides, other v...

Money laundering law in Oman The Sultanate of Oman, [1] is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is one of the member of Financial Action Task Force (FATF). [2] In addition to that Oman is also a member of Middle East and North Africa Financial International Task Force (MENAFATF), an affiliate of the FATF. [3] In Oman, the first law regarding money laundering was promulgated in 2002, namely, the Money Laundering Law (ML1), the Royal Decree No. 34/2002. The ML1 was accompanied by the Executive Regulations of the Anti-Money Laundering Law (ER), the Royal Decree 72/2004. Later, in 2010, the ML1 was replaced by the Anti Money Laundering and Combating Terrorist Financing Law (ML2), the Royal Decree No. 79/2010. As per law of Oman, the act of money laundering is considered as a crime and for that the authorities have taken numerous efforts to put that in conformity with the requirements of the United Nations Vienna Convention, Palermo Conventions, and FATF. [4] T...

Money laundering. Part 1: A brief introduction The term ‘money laundering’ is defined as a way by which criminals hide and disguise the origin and ownership of the proceeds of their crimes in order to avoid the prosecution, conviction and confiscation of the criminal funds; the technique is basically adopted to change the dirty money into clean money. [1] Other explanation is that it is a system to provide false stories for money transfers in document by mapping out the scheme for money laundering and exposing the differences between the true reasons for the money transfers and the presented reasons, the criminality of purpose is laid bare. [2] Thus, m oney laundering is the process of disguising the origins of property which has been acquired through criminal conduct . [3]    Traditionally, the process of money laundering consists of three stage; those are (i) placement, (ii) layering and (iii) integration. [4] At placement, attempts are made to conceal the ident...