PAKISTAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Abdul Muqtadir Khan, Syed Absar Rahat Rizvi, Hammad Saleem and Zair Zaman Khan, Khan & Arshad
and subsequent execution proceedings are formally recorded and maintained in registers prescribed under the respective High Court Rules and Orders applica - ble in each province and the Islamabad Capital Terri - tory. These registers are maintained by the concerned courts and contain details relating to the institution, adjudication and subsequent proceedings of cases, including the case number and year, names of the par - ties, nature of proceedings, date of institution, details of the judgment and decree passed, decretal amount (where applicable), execution proceedings, and any subsequent orders relating to satisfaction, adjustment or disposal of the decree. Accordingly, while there is no single national database through which all judgments against a person can be searched, the official record of a judgment or decree remains preserved in the court record of the court which passed the decree and, where applicable, the executing court. Recording Satisfaction of a Decree A judgment-debtor who has paid the decretal amount does not seek the physical removal or deletion of the judgment from the court record. Instead, the satisfac - tion of the decree is formally recorded. Under Order XXI Rule 2 of the CPC, where a decree has been satis - fied or adjusted out of court, such payment or adjust - ment is required to be certified to the court, and the court records this. Once satisfaction is entered, the decree is treated as satisfied for the purposes of execution proceed - ings. The procedure for recording payments made into court is further regulated under the relevant High Court Rules and Orders. For instance, under the Lahore High Court Rules and Orders, payments of decretal amounts deposited by a judgment-debtor are recorded through the prescribed Civil Court Deposit Accounts system. Depending on whether the court follows the cash system or voucher system, the pay - ment is entered into the relevant Register of Receipts. Upon disbursement of the amount to the decree- holder, the Nazir records the date and amount of repayment against the original entry, and the Presid - ing Officer initials the relevant entry to confirm that the payment has been applied towards satisfaction of
the decree. Thus, satisfaction of a decree is reflected through an endorsement or entry in the relevant court registers and execution record rather than by remov - ing the judgment from any register. 3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments The Governing Framework Pakistan’s rules for enforcing foreign judgments come from one law, the CPC, a federal statute which applies across all four provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Meaning of Foreign Judgment The threshold question is: what counts as a “foreign judgment”? The CPC’s own definition of “judgment” is narrow, but the courts do not apply it strictly in this context, reading the term instead in line with English law. A foreign order is therefore not rejected merely because it lacks detailed reasoning. A “foreign judg - ment”, in short, is any decree or order from a court outside Pakistan that has no authority inside the coun - try. Conclusiveness and Section 13 CPC The substantive test is Section 13 of the CPC, which asks whether the foreign judgment is “conclusive”. Section 14 assists the judgment-creditor: the court presumes that the judgment was pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction, although the pre - sumption is rebuttable. Section 13 lists the grounds for refusing enforcement: • the foreign court lacked jurisdiction; • the case was not decided on the merits; • the judgment misreads international law or wrongly ignores Pakistani law; • the process breached natural justice; • the judgment was obtained by fraud; or • it enforces a claim that itself breaks Pakistani law. Jurisdiction and Submission Jurisdiction is judged by the foreign country’s own law. One exception exists: a foreign court cannot rule on land located outside its territory. Submission to
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