The logical result of Blasphemy Law

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

(Published in Daily Times Sept 10, 2012)

The events of the last week may have surprised you. Seeing mullahs falling over one another to declare that Rimsha Masih, the 14-year-old Pakistani Christian girl, was innocent of the charge of blasphemy was quite a spectacle in a country no stranger to spectacles. It is not out of a sudden love for justice or humanity that the mullahs have adopted this stance. Khalid Jadoon Chishti’s attempt to drive out the Christians from their locality is just one case where the real motivations have been exposed entirely due to one conscientious muezzin who had the courage and humanity to speak out against this outrage.

A year and a half after the tragic assassination of Salmaan Taseer, it has become obvious to good Muslims of this country that in its present form clause 295-C militates not just against fundamental human rights but also against Islam. They now realise that the worst kind of blasphemy is misusing the name of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to persecute a minority community when all Muslims agree that he (PBUH) spoke of religious freedom long before it came to be universally accepted as a key principle of liberty.

Due Process and Blasphemy Law

Perhaps the most interesting legal development through the 18th Amendment to the constitution of Pakistan was the introduction of Article 10-A, which reads: “For the determination of his civil rights and obligations or in any criminal charge against him, a person shall be entitled to a fair trial and due process.” This article exists under the unceremonious heading of ‘Right to fair trial’ but is nothing less than a revolutionary concept for a country like ours where liberty has so often been the victim of expediency, state oppression and the tyranny of the permanent majority. What it does — and, unfortunately, this is not appreciated enough by our jurists — is create within our constitution the idea of substantive due process above and beyond procedural due process that its heading seems to betray.