Pakistan has had a long-standing tradition of ‘modernising’ colonial era laws, with legislation that ultimately retains the same logic. The recent Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill 2026 is an example of exactly that. The law promises something modern but retains the same logic as the Goonda Acts and the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.
The most dangerous part of the legislation, however, is that it introduces a regime that empowers the executive to make decisions that in any civilised society should be reserved for a judicial forum. Yousaf Nazar (author of ‘the gathering storm’) describes it as “one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation proposed in Pakistan in recent years” and explains that “it gives executive committees (that are dominated by police and intelligence officials) the power to brand citizens as ‘habitual offenders’ or ‘anti-social’ and punish them without first securing a criminal conviction”[1].
Before criticising the law, it is important to understand what it is.
The Bill defines Anti-social behaviour[2] as keeping, storing or managing a drinking or gambling den, touting to manage false testimonies, forced registered documents, or entering into corrupt practices with civil servants; keeping or managing a brothel or living off earning of prostitutes, fraudulent collection in the name of charity, doing obscene acts in public, habitually using obscene or abusive language in public and other similar acts.
To tackle such anti-social behaviour, it constitutes an ‘intelligence committee’[3] which includes members of the Police, intelligence officials and public servants[4]. It operates on the complaint of a member of the public or a report of an officer in charge, an assistance commissioner or an intelligence report. There appears to be no threshold as to who is eligible to complain and what level of evidence may be required to trigger the ongoings of the committee. The extent of the due process as per the bill is that an assistant commissioner and a police officer must verify the complaint and the accused must be given a chance to respond before taking action.
Here’s where the most dangerous part of the law comes in. If they decide to proceed, they can, WITHOUT a court conviction force the accused to sign a good behaviour bond, put the accused on a No Fly list, impound or block passport and CNIC of the accused, Delete social media accounts and confiscate the accused phone, laptop and all data on them, freeze the accused bank accounts, put the accused under digital surveillance, use a monitoring device on the accused. The only sanction that requires approval of a magistrate (within 15 days) is seizing property of the accused.
While all of the above mentioned powers may be in good faith and may even be essential for the committee to satisfy the purpose of the legislation, it fails to recognise the importance of a judicial forum. How can a committee of bureaucrats and intelligence officials replace a court of law and deploy even one of the above-mentioned sanctions without a conviction from the court, that too up to 3 months (extendable by the committee).
The Constitution of Pakistan has the answer for this type of overreach. It is not merely a recommendation for protection of fundamental rights, it is a guarantee. It voids any legislation that is inconsistent with its text[5]. This particular bill runs into Article 8 at almost every turn. The right to a fair trial[6] guarantees that no person faces punitive consequences without independent adjudication and at it’s most basic requires that the person deciding your fate is not the same person that is accusing you, and yet the bill empowers the same committee accusing a person of “anti-social behaviour” to impose serious sanctions without any interference of a judge. A notice to show cause before a committee that has received a complaint against the accused and has initiated an inquiry is only the appearance of due process, it does not embody the substance of it. A court of law exists with the sole purpose to make impartial decisions and provide the independence that executive bodies cannot, and by removing that entirely, the bill violates the right to a fair trial.
The same constitution also declares the dignity of man and the privacy of home[7] inviolable. The Lahore High Court in July 2023[8] extended this protection to cover digital devices, holding that any information in a person’s phone that they wish to be kept secret must be kept so and protected by the right to dignity. This bill ignores that protection in authorising confiscation of cell phones, laptops, and all data contained therein, all on the recommendation of the same committee that accuses an individual, initiates proceedings and fails to involve an adjudicator. The bill requires no court order or judicial warrant and makes no provision for independent oversight as to what happens with the data that is extracted from confiscated devices.
The Bill’s inclusion of ‘causing fear or alarm through social media and disseminating content known to be untrue or based on misinformation’[9] in what constitutes anti-social behaviour also violates the protection of freedom of speech that is subject only to restrictions imposed by the law in the interests of security, public order, or decency. It has consistently been held by the courts that these restrictions be reasonable and proportionate and be defined precisely and yet the definition remains vague. Who decides what causes fear or alarm? Who determines what constitutes misinformation? The answer will yet again come from the district intelligence committee, acting on a complaint that has no threshold of evidence. This is not a reasonable and proportionate restriction on the fundamental right; to put it very blatantly, it is a mechanism to administratively punish the ones who speak against authority without every having to step foot in a courtroom.
The harder question to ask is not whether the Bill is unconstitutional, it is to ask whether anyone with the power to say so will ever say so. Legislation like this rarely arrives all at once, it arrives in increments designed to normalise the law that came before it until the violation of these rights starts feeling less like a violation and more like ‘just the way things are’.
[1] ‘Outrageous’: Punjab’s proposed law reminiscent of colonial era draws criticism, desk news, Dawn News < https://www.dawn.com/news/2011603 > (03.07.2026)
[2] Section 6, Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill 2026
[3] Section 3, the Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill 2026
[4] Section 3(2), Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill 2026
[5] Article 8, Constitution of Pakistan 1973
[6] Article 10A, Constitution of Pakistan 1973
[7] Article 14, Constitution of Pakistan 1973
[8] 2024 CCJ 1 (Muhammad Rehmat Ullah Vs. the State and Others)
[9] Section 6(1)(j), the Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill 2026
