All fundamental rights are subject to limits

ISLAMABAD: Neither the Constitution nor any legal statute provides for unbridled fundamental rights but each one of them is subject to “reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the public interest and public order”.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and his associates have often stressed the point that their ‘peaceful’ lockdown of the federal capital is backed by their basic rights as enshrined in the Constitution. Nobody has the authority to snatch their fundamental rights. None but only they portray a ‘lockdown’ a peaceful protest although the very expression connotes that it is illegal and can’t be approved by any law.

All the basic rights relating to movement, assembly, freedom of speech and expression, access to information, to form association and to acquire property etc., listed in the Constitution are “subject to restrictions imposed by law”.

These legal restrictions are intended to protect the “public order” and “public interest” otherwise the State will become a joke and there will be no justification of the implementers of law to remain in place. If a government or State is unable to protect such “order” and “interest”, it will be miserably failing in its basic duty.

The Pakistan Penal Code is full of clauses that prescribe stern punishments for playing havoc with the “public order” and “public interest”. Moreover, the Anti-Terrorism Act is also invoked in several transgressions of law. Both laws are universally applicable and don’t differentiate between a small and big political party or an ordinary and a powerful person or politician. Violator of law is violator regardless of his status or position.

Article 15 says every citizen shall have the right to remain in, and, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the public interest, enter and move freely throughout Pakistan and to reside and settle in any part thereof.

Article 15 reads every citizen shall have the right to assemble peacefully and without arms, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of public order.

Article 17 says every citizen shall have the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, public order or morality.

Article 19 reads every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, and there shall be freedom of the press, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, commission of or incitement to an offence.

Article 19A says every citizen shall have the right to haveaccess to information in all matters of public importance subject to regulation and reasonable restrictions imposed by law.

According to article 23, every citizen shall have the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property in any part of Pakistan, subject to the Constitution and any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the public interest.

These provisions clearly establish that even the fundamental rights of citizens, which are obsessively protected worldwide and rightly so, are to be exercised while remaining within the confines of the law of the land. If such limits are not observed, there will definitely be lawlessness.

Examples of peaceful protests in the first world are often cited to justify the PTI’s lockdown, which is nothing but a travesty because there can be no comparison between the two. Even the million marches (though attended by hundreds of thousands of people) in London and other world capitals were never meant to lock down the seats of power.

There, none dares the writ of the state, and if any overzealous person resorts to breaking the law, he or she is instantly dealt with. The rules of the game are decided beforehand and a red line is drawn that can’t be crossed, and if anyone goes beyond that he is strictly handled as per the law.