Pakistan govt proposes 5-year jail term, Rs 1mn fine for defamation of army, judiciary in new bill

The Pakistan government has framed draft of a new law that will make defaming the Pakistan Army and judiciary through any medium a punishable offence.The government is mulling to amend the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) by making defamation of army and judiciary punishable and those convicted will be jailed for five years, reported the Dawn newspaper while claiming it has access to the draft bill,

The draft billinitiated by the Ministry of Interior and has already been vetted by the Ministry of Law and Justice and has now been sent to the federal cabinet for approval.

The proposed bill comes in the wake of a spate of scandalous and derogatory attacks on certain institutions of the state, including the judiciary and armed forces, the summary of the bill states.

The bill titled Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2023, suggests a new section 500A to be added after section 500 in PPC 1860. The new section is titled ‘Intentional ridiculing or scandalising of the state institutions etc.’

According to the new section, whoever makes, publishes, circulates any statement or disseminates information, through any medium, with an intention to ridicule or scandalise the judiciary, the armed forces or any of their member will be guilty of an offence punishable with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years or with a fine which may extend to Rs 1 million or with both.

Similarly, in the Schedule II of the PPC, a new section titled 500A has been added to section 500, which says that the offender will be arrested without a warrant and the offence will be non-bailable and non-compoundable which can only be challenged in a sessions court.

Former prime minister and member of the ruling PML-N Shahid Khaqan Abbasi initially extended his support to the proposed bill, but later backtracked from it.

“Everywhere in the world there is a defamation law and this does not happen that anyone comes up willy-nilly and says whatever they want,” he told Dawn.

But later in the day, Abbasi distanced himself from his comments and tweeted that he “simply cannot lend support to any draconian legislation”.

“I believe that Pakistan needs defamation laws with financial recourse to protect everyone from unsubstantiated accusations,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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