Daily Times

Between them, the security establishment and the judiciary appear to be reducing the breathing space whereby the citizenry is allowed to take to task particular state institutions. Already, freedom of speech when it comes to the military is more or less off the table. And now the higher courts are following suit.

Admittedly, the latter appear not to have just anyone in their sights — only Nawaz Sharif. The deposed Prime Minister is facing contempt notices before both the Islamabad and Lahore High Courts on the grounds of his inflammatory speeches against the judiciary. These include repeated affirmations, either during public rallies or to a waiting and watching media, that the people of Pakistan have not and never will accept the stoning and dethroning of a popularly elected premier. Or words to that effect. And while we agree that such ‘incitement’ runs contrary respecting the judiciary within a democratic context — we believe that it is a bit late in the day to gag him.

It would have been more prudent, say, for the Supreme Court to have placed an injunction against he or any of his family members speaking to the media about a case that was still under trial. For this severely compromises the tenets of a free and fair hearing anywhere in the world. Similarly, the SC could have got to the bottom of who leaked the Panama Papers report and verdict to the media the evening before the court officially announced and released it and duly reprimanded the fourth estate in that regard. But given that the judiciary did not act when needed — any moves towards the current end unfortunately seem like sour grapes. But worse than that, they threaten an already under-siege media.

Then there is the matter of who gets to determine who has the right to freedom of speech and who does not. For we must ask: are the Sharifs’ verbal attacks, as reckless as they may be, on par with those so-called reformed assets who were allowed to publicly campaign in two by-elections last year; and who are likely all set to do the same come summertime when the stakes will be even bigger?

Yet the judiciary’s focus on limiting free speech is only interested in barring television channels from broadcasting content that it finds unacceptable. We say this in light of this week’s threat made by an IHC judge contending that he would ban current affairs programs from live transmission if they presented unverified information. While the concerns of the judge in question are understandable, there is no definition in the PEMRA Code of Conduct clearly defining this principle. As the misreported news, also this week, claiming the Senate had passed a motion to introduce Mandarin as an official language of this country, only serves to underscore. This ‘fake news’ went viral. Which brings us to the point of how the courts intend to regulate what is or is not said at public rallies. For even it blacks-out mainstream media coverage of these — it will have an enormous task in cracking down on social media as a reporting tool. Or are we to believe that Pakistan is hurtling towards becoming a police state at the hands of an aggravated judiciary that will not think twice about blocking major social networking sites? For this is the path that we will be taking if we are not careful. And this is not something that Pakistan can afford anytime soon.  *

Published in Daily Times, February 21^st 2018.