Dawn Editorials 14th April 2023

SC vs PDM

THE gloves are off. If the government can ‘reject’ the Supreme Court’s verdicts, defy its orders and call into question its integrity, Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, too, can take the fight to the PDM if he so pleases.

At least that’s the message that appears to have been sent when the CJP formed an eight-member bench to hear a petition questioning the constitutionality of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill passed recently by parliament.

That same bench on Thursday unanimously decided that while it was too early to strike down the law, it could issue an ‘anticipatory injunction’ preventing it from taking effect.

“The moment that the Bill receives the assent of the President or (as the case may be), it is deemed that such assent has been given, then from that very moment onwards and till further orders, the Act that comes into being shall not have, take or be given any effect nor be acted upon in any manner,” the eight judges ordered yesterday.

Chief Justice Bandial has recently faced much criticism for being ‘too arbitrary’ when forming benches that are burdened with deciding important legal matters. These benches, the critics believe, have ruled ‘too regularly’ in favour of the PDM government’s opponents.

Justice Bandial seems to have been quite cognisant of this line of criticism: the benches announced for this week’s hearings had caused quite a stir as the CJP was said to have made a conscious effort to have differing perspectives represented on each bench.

However, when the bench asked to hear the petitions against the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill was announced on Wednesday, it left little doubt that Justice Bandial was keen to underline his power and authority. The number was as significant as the names of the judges: clearly, he had the support of the Supreme Court’s majority.

Separately, the chief justice also demonstrated that he could cut out the federal government and approach the executive directly on the Punjab elections matter. Key state officials have been summoned to meet him today in chambers.

There is speculation that he may direct the officials to implement the orders of the Supreme Court regarding the provision of resources required by the ECP. There is also the possibility of the federal government being charged with contempt for ‘disobeying’ the apex court’s April 10 deadline to hand over Rs21bn to the ECP for elections.

With the chief justice seemingly unapologetic about resorting to the vast powers vested in his office, the federal government’s stand-off with the Supreme Court is likely to take an uglier turn. The window for finding an amicable way out of Pakistan’s crisis is closing fast. Will the key stakeholders still refuse to act? Or will our institutions continue climbing the escalation ladder?

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2023


The right to offend

JUDGEMENTS that are of consequence to a society’s evolution do not always involve contemporary politics, though they may in time impact how politics is done.

Precisely such a landmark judgement was handed down by a two-judge Supreme Court bench on Wednesday in a case involving Pemra’s punitive actions against a TV channel’s drama serial in 2020. The regulator had axed the serial after receiving complaints from citizens decrying it as immoral and against cultural values, but the Sindh High Court had struck down the ban on appeal, leading to Pemra’s petitioning the Supreme Court against the decision. Dismissing the petition, the bench held that the Pemra law envisaged a two-tier regulatory system in which citizens’ complaints were to be first reviewed by the Councils of Complaints, a step that in the instant case was wrongly omitted. However, the most consequential part of the verdict addressed the principles that must act as a guide while regulating media content.

As a society, our propensity to be offended by others’ lifestyle choices and beliefs is a threat to the fundamental rights of many fellow citizens. Indeed, encouraged by dubious guardians of morality, this self-righteousness has sometimes led to terrible acts of violence. It has also been an obstacle to the creative arts as a means of spreading awareness of various social ills, and in squarely addressing urgent national issues such as family planning. In a judgement all the more remarkable against this backdrop, the Supreme Court points out that tolerance “does not necessarily imply agreement with or endorsement of the opinions or beliefs of others; rather, it is about respecting their right to hold those beliefs and coexist peacefully”. Freedom of expression is the vehicle whereby tolerance is instilled in society; in fact, says the verdict, it “helps actualise other fundamental rights”. Restrictions on the freedom of expression must therefore be “interpreted strictly and narrowly”; decency is a standard of tolerance, not taste. Perhaps most significantly, the verdict holds that information or ideas “which offend, shock or disturb the state or any other sector of the population” are equally protected. This is as impassioned a defence of the freedom of expression as John Milton’s famed pamphlet on the subject published in 1644, in which he so memorably said: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister’d virtue, unexercis’d & unbreath’d, that never sallies out and sees her adversary.”

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2023


Taliban UN women ban

BY disallowing women from working for the UN in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban are shooting themselves in the foot. It is only the latest in a series of regressive anti-women steps the hard-line group has taken after capturing Kabul in 2021. In December, the group had disallowed Afghan women from working for local and international NGOs, and over the past few days the ban has been extended to the UN. Reacting to the ban, UN officials have threatened to scale down their operations in the impoverished country. If it were to come to this, the Afghan people would be the worst sufferers. After the ban on NGOs was initially announced, many organisations had pulled out of the country. The UN mission in Afghanistan has said it cannot abide by the fresh Taliban edict as it is “unlawful under international law”, while adding that the multilateral body was being forced to make an “appalling choice” about whether or not to continue to work in Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, has termed the UN ban an “internal issue” which should be respected by all.

For Afghanistan’s women and girls, and for that country’s hapless population in general, there are few reasons to be hopeful. The ruling hard-liners have curtailed women’s higher education and limited the number of careers women can adopt, as well as trying very hard to make women disappear from the public sphere. Yet if the UN does pull out of the country, the situation will become even more bleak, as an isolated Afghanistan faces hunger and poverty. Perhaps Muslim states — Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Gulf sheikhdoms — can try and talk sense into the Taliban. It must be made clear that the relentless assaults on women’s freedoms will only add to Afghanistan’s isolation. The UN, on the other hand, should reconsider pulling out of Afghanistan, as this is likely to increase the Afghan people’s miseries.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2023

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