THE Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC) recent ruling to criminalise ‘attempted suicide’ runs contrary to ‘Mill’s Harm Principle’, a bedrock value of any modern ‘liberal democracy’.
In ‘Hammad Saeed vs Federation of Pakistan’ (2026), the FSC struck down the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2022, whereby Section 325 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, and corresponding entries in Schedule II of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, which had been omitted, were revived, criminalising ‘attempted suicide’.
The FSC did not feature in the original text of the 1973 Constitution; rather it was later established during Gen Ziaul Haq’s regime through President’s Order No. 1 of 1980. Subsequently, an entire Chapter 3-A was inserted in Part VII of the Constitution to give the FSC constitutional cover to “examine and decide the question whether or not any law or provision of law is repugnant to the Injunctions of Islam”.
The establishment of the FSC was part of Gen Zia’s Islamisation exercise, which provided what John K. Cooly calls in Unholy Wars (1999) the social and cultural environment needed for the “raising, training, equipping, paying and sending into battle against the Red Army in Afghanistan a mercenary army of Islamist volunteers”.
The FSC’s ruling, is grounded in theology and the interpretation of religious creed. However, I shall restrict the analysis of the FSC’s ruling to issues beyond the theological sphere.
The response to attempted suicide should be rooted in compassion.
The ruling cites no data or paper on suicides published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), no sociological inquiry or research into the causes of suicides, no medical evidence extrapolating the underlying reasons for or means to prevent suicide.
Its moral certitude compared with the lack of empirical evidence reminds one of a revelatory passage from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) by John Locke, which postulates, “Whatsoever credit or authority we give to any proposition more than it receives from the principles and proofs it supports itself upon, is owing to our inclinations that way, and is so far a derogation from the love of truth”.
According to the WHO, roughly one person dies around the globe by suicide every 43 seconds. Suicides happen for multifarious reasons, at the forefront of which is mental health. There appears to be no empirical evidence to demonstrate that criminalising suicide or attempted suicide has the effect of creating any deterrence, or helping rehabilitate survivors, who walk down the unfortunate path of attempting to arrest the pulse in their veins.
We refrain from jumping off 10-storey buildings not out of fear of being prosecuted for attempting suicide, but because we are, as Richard Dawkins writes in The Selfish Gene (1976) “programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes”, our surest and biological safeguard against attempting suicide.
In mediaeval Europe, attempted suicide was treated as a crime. Historically in England, a person who committed suicide was treated as a ‘felo-de-se’ (felon of himself) and denied a Christian burial, and liable to have all his property forfeited in favour of the Crown. According to McDonald and Murphy in Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England, by the early 18th century, society took a more sympathetic approach, and adjudged over 90 per cent of all suicides as insane. However, the actual decriminalisation happened with the promulgation of the Suicide Act, 1961.
Although the FSC by virtue of its historic and constitutional position is not expected to approach a case from the perspective of a ‘liberal democracy’, there is no ill in scrutinising its decision from such perspective.
The famous ‘Mill’s Harm Principle’ as encapsulated in On Liberty (1859) by John Stuart Mill reads: “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others.”
This position has vigorously been defended by Prof H.L.A. Hart in Law, Liberty and Morality (1963) and in his famous debate with Lord Devlin — ‘Hart-Devlin Debate’ — followed by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).
Though suicide is a sorry choice, the ruling is counterintuitive to ‘Mill’s Harm Principle’, and criminalises an act which should really be met with compassion, understanding, medical attention and rehabilitation.
The writer is a practising barrister.
Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2026