Pakistan: Amicus Brief Challenging Criminal Defamation

"The Centre for Law and Democracy and the Institute for Research, Advocacy and Development have submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Islamabad High Court on behalf of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.The case involves a constitutional challenge to Pakistan’s criminal defamation provisions, which provide for sanctions of up to two years imprisonment. The main argument is that criminal defamation laws are not justified as necessary restrictions on freedom of expression because civil defamation laws exert less of a chilling effect on speech and provide adequate protection for reputations.

Our brief outlines international standards in this area, showing how criminal defamation and imprisonment for defamation have been addressed by international and regional human rights courts, as well as in authoritative statements by official actors. It also reviews countries which have either repealed their criminal defamation rules or had them struck down by courts. In addition to these arguments against criminal defamation in general, the brief also highlights a number of specific ways in which the Pakistani rules in this area fail to conform to international standards. These include by providing for a defence for statements about officials only where those statements were made in good faith, and limiting the defence of truth to cases where the statements were also “for the public good”."