It is appreciable the Supreme Court of Pakistan, even though the eye of a constitutional storm, still makes decisions on matters involving the ordinary citizen. A three-member Bench rejected the appeal by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, which it had against a Sindh High Court order striking down the ban it had placed on a certain drama serial. The Bench noted that the matter had not been taken to the Council of Complaints. This stops the way of an individual exercising his personal prejudices, but does not throw open the media to anything being broadcast. The Court has also set certain principles, and in this respect, will be useful to the regulator as well as those it is to regulate. As the Court said, art and literature could not be termed ‘obscene’ without a holistic review; and its saying that something was obscene or vulgar only if it was offensive to the commonly accepted standards of decency. The Bench recognized that these standards were in a state of flux, and it was the Council of Complaints, consisting of a chairman and five citizens of eminence, which would decide if something was too much.
The standard set by the Court should extend to the censor boards, For it would be impossible to operate a system in which the boards and PEMRA were operating according to different standards. There has to be an end to the prevailing attitude, where, diametrically opposite to what the Court ruled, censorship takes place because of dislike. As the Court said, art would’ offend, shock or disturb’, but this was covered by the constitutional protection of the freedom of speech. The attempts to impose a gag on something that is disliked on aesthetic grounds, in the name of obscenity, should stop after this judgement.
Though it could have gone much further, the judgement errs on the side of caution, though it does take into account the freedom the Constitution grants. The Council of Complaints provides a mechanism by which it would be possible to judge what is acceptable to society as a whole, and what was not. It takes the question of judging what is right and wrong out of the hands of a single individual and prevents him or her from imposing personal prejudices. The important point was made that the taboos of yesteryear may be acceptable today, so the dead weight of the past must not be imposed.
