Senate passes Cyber Crimes Bill unanimously

ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Friday unanimously adopted the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2016 but not without incorporating several amendments proposed by the opposition, including one envisaging parliamentary and judicial oversight of the law to check its possible misuse.

An oversight parliamentary committee will be constituted and twice a year, a report on the state of implementation of the law will be presented in parliament. As many as 21 crimes have been identified in the bill.

A jail term of 14 years will be awarded to those involved in terrorism-related cyber crimes, besides imposition of Rs50 million fine. Moreover, seven-year jail term will be for those found involved in spreading hatred and sectarianism through speeches.

A seven-year jail term will be handed down to those found involved in funding terrorism using internet, whereas seven-year jail term will also be for anyone involved in printing or uploading immoral images of children and they will also face a fine of Rs5 million.

The bill was cleared by the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology early this week, but the opposition and the government had detailed deliberations prior to moving the bill for adoption Friday, following consensus between the two sides on wide-ranging amendments to it.

The House had to reconvene after Juma prayers to ensure passage of the bill, which is rare in its history. The proceedings also remained suspended for more than two hours, as no minister was present in the House to move the bill for adoption, forcing Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani to suspend the business, initially for 30 minutes.

The bill will now again be taken up by the National Assembly,when it meets for a fresh session from August 1. Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan praised the government for making the legislation comprehensive after amendments were also made part of it.

“The parliamentary and judicial oversight are the two important amendments that have incorporated in the bill, and it will help prevent its misuse to a great extent, but still there is a lot more to do to make it a comprehensive law,” Aitzaz believed.

In Clause 34 of the bill, a new sub-section was inserted, which states that an appeal against the decision of the authority in review will be made before the high court within 30 days of the order of the authority.

Another major amendment is that the agency designated or established under section 26 of the act shall submit a half yearly report to both the houses of Parliament for consideration by the relevant committee in-camera, in respect of its activities, without disclosing identity of the informer.

The bill was moved by Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rehman and the bill was adopted by the House unanimously. The Senate session remained suspended for over two hours as major opposition political party – Pakistan People’s Party – was reluctant to pass the bill in the current form.

However, the PPP agreed to support the bill after some 50 amendments were incorporated in the bill for which assurances were given to it, which according to Aitzaz, made it much better than the original bill passed by the National Assembly.

“We can’t call it a perfect bill but it is still far better than what we had received from the National Assembly. Both law minister and Anusha Rehman were kind, who open heartedly accepted whatever amendment we wanted to incorporate in it,” he added.

On her part, Anusha Rehman said that the government took the initiative, as there existed no proper law to control the cyber crimes, adding due to absence of any law, the investigating agencies were helpless in taking action against the criminals.

She said that all the stakeholders were taken on board; public hearings were conducted; civil society and rights groups were consulted, to make it comprehensive. She said that reservations of both print and electronic media had been addressed and the bill would not apply to them.

The minister noted that special courts would be set up to listen to such cases, however, she added that except for terrorism related cases and taking part in child pornography crimes, no other person could be arrested without court’s orders.

In clause 10 sub-clause (b) the words “shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 14 years or that fine which may be extended to Rs50 million or with both” were dropped.

In clause 10 sub-clause (c) after the words “under the law” the full-stop shall be deleted and the words” shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term, which may extend to 14 years or that fine which may be extended to Rs50 million or with both” were inserted.

In clause 10—A for the word “ethnic” the word “racial” was substituted. And in clause 19, sub-clause (1), clause (c) after the words “explicit conduct” the word “or” was inserted and a new clause “(d) discloses the identity of the minor” were inserted.

In clause 21, sub-clause 2, the word “one year” was substituted with the word “three years”. In clause 22 sub-section (3) after the words “with fine” the words “of Rs50,000 which may extend up to Rs5 million” were inserted.

Speaking before passage of the bill, Senator Col (R) Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, who is parliamentary leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said his party would abstain from the voting on the bill, as no one from his party was invited to the meeting of the opposition parties before presenting the bill in the House.

However, the MQM voted for the bill after Aitzaz Ahsan tendered an unconditional apology to Mashahadi for not inviting his party to the meeting that made a detailed deliberation on the bill before bringing to the House for final approval.

He also said that the PPP tried its best to make the bill state and citizen friendly, for which he and Sherry Rehman had to convince PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as he was reluctant to support the bill till last minute.

Senator Sherry Rehman said that the opposition saved the bill from becoming a ‘complete black law’ by making amendments, adding it was deeply imperfect law, which would be streamlined with the passage of time.