Sedition law.

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 The British may have long left the subcontinent and repealed their own sedition law in 2010, but both Pakistan and India continued to cling to this legacy.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...