The IHC rejects the PTI’s request to declare the sedition statute unconstitutional.
On Saturday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) dismissed PTI Senior Vice President Shireen Mazari’s petition asking the court to declare sedition laws invalid.Today, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah dismissed the plea as unmaintainable.The senior PTI leader filed the case after her party colleague, Shahbaz Gill, was charged and imprisoned in Islamabad for more than a month.
Mazari has challenged Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code in her petition to the IHC (PPC).”Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, may be very graciously declared ultra-vires in terms of Article 8 of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, being inconsistent with and in derogation of fundamental rights provided under Articles 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19, 19A of the Constitution,” the petition stated.
The PTI leader claimed that Section 124-A of the Sedition Act was being used to stifle free expression, which was in violation of the Constitution’s fundamental liberties.
According to the petition, sedition trials were used to repress criticism and expression. The petition demanded that Article 124-A of the Sedition Act be declared unlawful.Mazari has also asked the IHC to prohibit the registration of sedition cases and to impose an injunction in this regard.
“The respondents (Government of Pakistan) may kindly be prohibited from registering any FIRs, or undertaking any coercive step in Sedition Cases under Section 124-A in the interim and during the pendency of the instant suit,” the plea claimed.
Mazari further stated that the British, who instituted the law of sedition to oppress Indians, had repealed it in their own nation.According to the PTI leader, after recognising the importance of free speech and expression, the United Kingdom repealed the seditious libel statute through the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009.
The petitioner further mentioned that the sedition laws had been repealed in various nations, including the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Ghana, South Korea, Indonesia, Scotland, and Singapore.