IN the midst of all the gloom and despair, the Lahore High Court has given the country something to genuinely cheer for. In what could prove a watershed in Pakistan’s legal history, the Lahore High Court has deemed Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code inconsistent with the Constitution of Pakistan.
Section 124-A, more commonly known as the ‘sedition law’, is an ugly relic of our colonial past. Introduced by our colonial overlords in 1870 and reflective of their desire for total control over the populations they ruled, it was used to browbeat dissenters posing any inconvenient challenge to the ruling classes.
The British may have long left the subcontinent and repealed their own sedition law in 2010, but both Pakistan and India continued to cling to this legacy.
In its current form, 124-A of the PPC reads: “Whoever […] brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt or […] excite disaffection towards, the Federal or Provincial Government established by law shall be punished […]”, with the punishments ranging in severity from life imprisonment to a fine. Overtly, in the words of a recent proponent, the law protects the “security and sanctity of the state”; in reality, it essentially criminalises political dissent.
Prominent victims have included independence movement notables like Gandhiji and Bal Gangadhar Tilak (whose case the Quaid-i-Azam himself fought as a young lawyer), and, later, anti-establishment icons like Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
In more recent history, Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement leaders, such as Manzoor Pashteen, leftist leaders like Ammar Ali Jan, and assorted leaders of the PTI, such as Shehbaz Gill and Fawad Chaudhry, have faced detention under the same laws.
The Lahore High Court’s ruling is being celebrated in the legal community, as it should be. It is hoped that this is the start of the reversal of not just the dated sedition law, but also other repugnant laws from the colonial era, like the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, which have no place in any modern, democratic society. For too long, the state has brutalised its own people under various pretexts to maintain what it sees as ‘order’ and ‘control’.
It is about time that our social contract is rewritten to reflect the primacy of the public’s right to democratic expression and dissent.
Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2023
