Dawn Editorials 10th September 2025

Gas issues

THE extension of captive levy — already imposed on the industrial customers of the two public sector utilities under the IMF funding programme — to third-party suppliers must end policy distortion and migration of captive power producers away from the Sui companies. But this will not resolve the gas sector’s bigger issue of mounting circular debt amid a glut caused by long-term LNG import agreements and dwindling demand due to high fuel prices. The ‘oversupply’ of gas in the SNGPL system has forced the utility to defer the import of over 170 LNG cargoes and order local gas producers to either shut down their fields or scale down production. But these are merely temporary solutions, which will only push a deeper crisis to a later date. Meanwhile, these actions will impose substantial costs on local producers, such as the state-owned OGDCL, and lead to unannounced supply suspensions for customers — all to reduce its financial losses.

The gas crisis was waiting to happen for several years. The problems — a supply glut, reduced demand, rising theft and system losses, soaring consumer prices — are not any different from the ones confronting the power sector. Warnings of a build-up of circular sector debt, due to the widening mismatch between the increasing costs of delivering gas to consumers and production, as well as SNGPL’s inability to recover the full cost of expensive imported LNG were being sounded for over 10 years. Yet, nothing was done to address the issue. To effectively tackle the gas sector circular debt and associated issues, the government should, among other things, implement the WACOG law to ensure a balanced pricing mechanism reflecting the true cost of gas, including RLNG, eliminate cross subsidies distorting the market and privatise the Sui companies monopolising the sector. Increasing gas prices and levying punishing taxes on consumers will do nothing. This policy has failed to deliver in the power sector, and will not succeed in the gas sector either.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2025

False freedom

THE Commonwealth likes to talk a big game when it comes to democratic values. Its leaders signed lofty “media principles” in Samoa last year, promising to defend free expression and protect journalists. Yet a new report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the Commonwealth Journalists Association and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association shows how far words and practice diverge. Across 41 member states defamation remains a criminal offence; 48 retain sedition laws; and 37 still enforce blasphemy provisions. These colonial leftovers are routinely wielded against reporters, activists and critics. The cost is not only paid in lives; it can also be counted in liberties lost. Between 2006 and 2023, 213 journalists were killed in Commonwealth countries, according to Unesco. In 96pc of cases, the perpetrators were never brought to justice. Such impunity is not just a stain on governments; it is an incentive for would-be assassins.

Pakistan is a prime example. Over 80 journalists have been killed in less than two decades, making it one of the deadliest Commonwealth countries for the profession. Few cases have been credibly prosecuted. The killings of Saleem Shahzad, an investigative reporter abducted and murdered in 2011; of Wali Khan Babar, gunned down the same year with several witnesses later eliminated; and of Arshad Sharif, shot by Kenyan police in 2022 after fleeing threats at home, remain either unsolved or only partly adjudicated. Bereaved families are left with questions and, in some cases, intimidation. Legal harassment compounds the danger. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act has become a catch-all tool against inconvenient voices online. Blasphemy laws hang over not only minorities but journalists, creating self-censorship. Small wonder the country is in the bottom tier of the World Press Freedom Index. What is to be done? The report urges repeal of criminal defamation and sedition, independent investigations into attacks on journalists, and accountability mechanisms to end impunity. Pakistan, and the Commonwealth more broadly, will need more than pledges. Repealing archaic laws, reforming digital-era censorship statutes, and empowering independent prosecutors would be a start. Until then, declarations about media freedom will just be empty rhetoric. For all the talk of ‘shared values’, the Commonwealth has allowed its members to muzzle the very voices that make democracy meaningful. If the press is unsafe, so is the promise of accountability.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2025

Split court

THERE is a growing sense of unease over what fresh ignominies the future has in store for the Pakistani judiciary.

Once again, some of the senior-most justices of this country have publicly voiced their dissatisfaction with how the courts have been functioning. No matter what their detractors say, these are men and women who have spent their careers working with the law and constantly weighing its implications for society. Their complaints, no matter how wilfully ignored and scornfully derided, still hold meaning and weight. Unless they are addressed, the judiciary will continue to lose its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the public.

And the alarm is certainly not misplaced: laws, rules and justice are not merely tools of governance. They provide the architecture which holds together trust, fairness and the possibility of peace in human society. And it seems that that architecture is being dismantled bit by bit, often with the assistance of the judiciary itself.

It is rather alarming when a globally respected judge publicly regrets that the Pakistani Supreme Court has itself not been playing by the rules. The senior puisne judge’s recent letter to the chief justice, which surfaced shortly before a full-court meeting earlier this week, highlights six major instances in which norms and regulations were bypassed or overruled by the latter.

The most striking among the objections raised pertains to the Practice and Procedures Committee, which was ushered in with much fanfare by the current chief justice’s predecessor as a step to promote collegiality, and which seems to have been abandoned as soon as it became an irritant for the chief justice’s office.

The senior puisne judge made it clear his letter was not about personal grievances, but rather objections arising from concerns about the judiciary’s independence and integrity. Yet, there has been no explanation forthcoming from the chief justice as to why those decisions were taken.

On the day of the full-court meeting, four senior justices, including the senior puisne judge, declined to attend. The approval of the Supreme Court Rules, 2025, had been on the agenda. The new rules had been notified by circulation earlier, to the disappointment of the recusing judges, who wanted them debated before the full court and approved after deliberation. This was certainly not an unreasonable expectation, given that these rules will govern the highest court of the land, and there should have been more transparency in their implementation.

“We see no point in attending a meeting that is premised on amending rules which, in our respectful view, already suffer from illegality both in substance and in process,” the judges regretted.

The Supreme Court is clearly fractured from within. It is unfortunate that matters have come to this point, but the judges have only themselves to blame.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2025