After eight months in office, the government finally ended its ignominious failure to legislate by pushing two bills through the National Assembly, the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill 2014 and the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill 2013, both intended to bring changes in the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. The bills passed muster but not before a heated debate in which the draconian aspects of the bills were contested and opposed by opposition MNAs, especially from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The bills were aimed at countering terrorist financing through money laundering and anointing law enforcement agencies with shoot-at-sight powers on mere suspicion of any impending terrorist act. Both bills, and a third, were based on three Ordinances the government had promulgated instead of bringing in legislation, which aroused a great deal of criticism on the floor of the National Assembly as an attempt to bypass parliament. The third bill turned out to be the most controversial of all, based at it was on the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance that many inside and outside parliament regard as giving the security and law enforcement agencies unfettered powers of arrest without warrants, even from private residences, and again, shoot-at-sight orders on suspicion. Detainees under this Ordinance are deprived of access to family, lawyers or even ‘daylight’, since the authorities are absolved of responsibility for revealing detainees’ whereabouts or even the grounds for detention. The bill based on this Ordinance proved too much even for the otherwise cooperative Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which supported the other two bills, along with some support from the rest of the opposition. While, therefore, the third bill was shelved for further discussions with the opposition, the other two bills were passed and will now run the gauntlet of the Senate, where the government does not enjoy a majority. Ironically, while the government was pressing for passing these bills, at the same time it asked for, and obtained, an extension of 120 days for the Ordinances that were about to expire. So for the next four months the Ordinances will hold the field, while the fate of the three bills based on them remains to be decided in parliament. The colonial legacy of the law enforcement agencies enjoying substantial, even draconian powers at the cost of democratic rights already leads to abuse of power. As if this were not bad enough, the government’s Protection of Pakistan Ordinance increases security officials’ draconian powers. This Ordinance violates the rights of citizens and is virtually the declaration of a police state. The opposition fears the law could be used to victimise political opponents. It could also end up giving legislative cover to the impunity with which the security agencies are accustomed to acting and which has been the centerpiece of the cases of missing persons in the superior courts for years. While the exigencies of the struggle against terrorism suggest greater freedom of action and detention by the security and law enforcement agencies, in a country where they already enjoy an unenviable reputation for unaccountable immunity and in the case of the police, bribery, brutality and inefficiency, further empowerment of such forces would be a blow against citizens’ human, legal, fundamental and civil rights. The government says we need the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance because we live in extraordinary times. That is true, but seldom have states succeeded against internal challenges, in this case terrorist, without retaining and protecting the fundamental rights of their citizens and ensuring that the security and law enforcement agencies do not turn into a law unto themselves, a phenomenon already embryonically present in our law enforcement setup. *