Pakistan’s cybercrime law: boon or bane?

A controversial piece of legislation PECA was passed by the National Assembly on 11, Aug,
2016 and is one of the most hotly debated laws. Resistance to making the bill public and lack of
transparency was some of the tactics employed by the government to prevent any debate or
scrutiny of the proposed law. Opposition parties were initially keen in their resistance, eventually
agreed to lend support to the bill with some amendments.

PECA gives the impression of being ominous from the earlier laws of cyber-crime because the
former laws dealt primarily with computer-related crimes, whereas PECA introduced sections
that criminalize speech and give authorities unchecked powers to curtail and prosecute it. The
justification for these sections was the need to bring all legislative efforts in line with the 12
point National Action Plan. Three principle reasons given to support these laws was the need to
check extremist content, prosecute hate speech, and curb online harassment of women.

One of the concerns with PECA is the powers given to PTA under Section 37 and 20. For
instance, Section 37 of PECA gives unrestrained powers to the PTA to block or remove online
content, thereby restricting the right to freedom of expression, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the
constitution. The PTA now has the ability and power, as to how Article 19 is to be interpreted
and applied. Whereas, Section 20 “Offences against the natural dignity of a person”, the PTA can
act unilaterally against such content, without first requiring a court order.

PECA created an environment of fear for bloggers and people expressing their views online. In
April 2017, Mashal Khan, a student of Peshawar University, was lynched at his university. He
had been accused of posting blasphemous content from his social media accounts, accounts that
he said were fake. A mere allegation, a hacked account, or a fake account in one’s name was
enough for the pronouncement of guilt, which could lead to legal consequences, and even death
at the hands of a mob.

One witnessed an inactive approach when it came to litigants seeking relief under the law. After
the complaints and arrests came the trial stage. However, the trials could not commence because
the special courts set up under PECA had not been notified about their new designation, seven
months after the passage of a law the official notification for the designation of courts was
issued, this leads many litigants to hire private councils to move their cases.

The intent behind PECA was to control rather than provide relief to the average person. In the
name of protecting the people, what the state did through PECA was powers to protect itself
from criticism, strip citizens of speech and privacy rights, and subject them to the discretionary
powers of investigative agencies.