Parliament’s passage of the Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill 2024 was clearly meant to precede the PTI rally in Islamabad on Sunday. Parliament is supposed to be a political body, and it is so structured that the majority is free to indulge its political wishes. However, it should be careful that it does not legislate in a purely partisan fashion. The temptation will always be there, just as the present Bill illustrates. However, that is a temptation to be resisted. The legislature should realize that legislation may be misused, and should be so drafted as to preclude that misuse. It is not simply a matter of the law coming onto the books for all time to come, not just simply of the percent set, but it is necessary to remember that such legislation may serve as an example to provincial legislature. If Islamabad must have its order maintained, then what is wrong with the provincial assemblies then enacting some similar provision for the provincial capital? And apart from the provincial capital, why not the divisional HQs? And the district? In fact, why not an act covering any gathering anywhere in any district in any province.
Every sitting government is going to look askance at any opposition gathering. For that reason, it is going to try restricting them. After all, it cannot condone any activity that threatens public order. Public order becomes much more of a concern in its capital. However, any government legislating on this subject should remember that it could always find itself in the opposition. Gatherings are intrinsic to the freedom of expression, and allow people otherwise silent to express their opinion on a particular issue. The present Act empowers the Islamabad district administration by making its permission essential to the holding of a rally. That power is already being used to shift the venue on security considerations. The PTI wants to hog the limelight with its rally, and being shunted away would defeat its purpose.
There is still one way out. There is no need to develop any confrontation. The PTI is presently focused on getting its chairman out of jail. That will depend on how deeply he is involved in last year’s May 9 incidents. Rather than its use of the legislature and the executive, as at present, the PML(N) must opt for political means of combatting the PTI. After all, if the government can deliver on good governance and provision of relief for the common man, it will not need any crutches to fac e down the PTI.
