Regulating the Digital Public Sphere: Freedom of Expression under Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025

Abstract

Parliament passed the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025 in January 2025 with little public consultation. The Act created a Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority with powers to direct the blocking and removal of “unlawful or offensive” content, a complaint council, tribunals and a new investigation agency, and created a new offence in section 26A of intentionally disseminating “false or fake” information likely to generate “fear, panic, disorder or unrest”. This article examines whether this framework is consistent with freedom of speech and of the press under Article 19 of the Constitution, right to information under Article 19A, dignity and privacy under Article 14, right to a fair trial under Article 10A and Pakistan's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Through doctrinal analysis of the statute, leading Pakistani judgements such as the Faizabad Dharna case (2019) and the Islamabad High Court’s 2022 PECA Ordinance decision, and comparative analysis with India, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Singapore, it finds that while the amendments respond to real online harms, they fail the tests of legality, necessity and proportionality in several respects: the false-information offence has no defined harm threshold and no public-interest defence, the content categories are vague, and the regulator and tribunals lack independence from the executive. The article advocates a rights-based reform agenda that would include clearer definitions, an independent regulator, notice-and-hearing procedures, judicial authorisation for blocking, and decriminalisation of speech-related offences that can be addressed through civil remedies.