The National Assembly of Pakistan has recently passed an amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, that provides the law enforcement agencies and the government with powers to detain any “suspicious” individual for up to three months without the right to trial. This arbitrary amendment cannot be treated as part of the normal course of law. It is an alarming move on the part of the incumbent government and a wake-up call for all citizens, whether connected to the legal fraternity or not. The amendment is a deliberate attempt to legitimise the notorious concept of preventive detention — a concept that is at odds with the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of 1973.

History tells us that whenever such selective amendments have been enacted, they have been widely misused as weapons of suppression against political opponents and dissenting voices critical of the government at that time. A case in point is the ongoing wave of convictions being handed down to PTI workers,........

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