Legal Perspective of Judicial and Media Censorship in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper will analyze the law that governs censorship of the judiciary and the media in Pakistan. It examines how Article 19 of the constitution ensures the right to free speech is tensioned with legal tools to suppress it, including the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016, the contempt of court laws, or laws of general media. The study contends that although judicial censorship, practiced by involving the exercise of the suo moto power and contempt citation, is supposed to safeguard institutional power and national interest, it tends to limit judicial responsibility and press freedom. At the same time, the censorship of media, which is imposed either by state institutions or by coercion, subverts democratic discourse. The results suggest that this twofold censorship results in a complicated scenario of free expression where the judiciary will be both a possible protector of the rights and a restrictive force. The paper finds that legal provisions must be rebalanced between the dignity of the judiciary and the basic liberties by recalibration of the law.