Media tribunals faux pas

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government, amongst all its other failings, suffers from impetuosity and lack of forethought. An example of these traits has recently been on display in the federal cabinet's 'decision' to set up media tribunals to handle complaints against the press. It seems that for this government, the stranglehold on the media, freedom of expression and the public space is not enough. Through such measures, it wishes to eliminate even the limited freedoms being exercised by the media. With all the roadblocks set up by this 'hybrid' dispensation in the path of a free media, including shrinking government advertising in the midst of an economic downturn that has shrunk private sector advertising too, the chinks in the curtain have seen growing incremental criticism of the government's policies and performance. This is anathema to thin-skinned Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose example trickles down through the ranks of his party and government.
Proof of this assertion resides in the reports that the federal cabinet took up the idea after a couple of ministers complained of being continuously targeted by the media and their image tarnished, with mala fide intentions according to the peeved complainants. In any mature cabinet, the ministers would have been educated by their colleagues on the need for tolerance of criticism while in office, that being the hallmark of any democracy worth its salt. Instead, the cabinet entire, in knee-jerk fashion, pounced on the idea of setting up the proposed media tribunals with the unspoken aim of preventing even the small space for critical reporting and comment being utilised in the interests of the people and the country.
Critics can point to the laws against defamation, slander and libel for addressing complaints against the media. Of course the counterpoint would be the impossibly slow judicial process, particularly on the civil side, which causes such complaints to literally wither on the vine while waiting for the snail's pace, winding, tortuous judicial process to play out. While there can be sympathy for this counterpoint, the trend in recent years to throw the idea of creating new 'special' courts at anything and everything under the sun has only added to the jungle of judicial confusion and misuse of these special courts (the anti-terrorism courts are a classic example, being inundated with ordinary crimes labelled 'terrorism' by our too-clever-by-half law enforcers and prosecutors, without any positive outcome from the logjam of cases pending). The solution does not lie in creating more 'special' courts but in streamlining the normal judicial system to make it more efficient and trustworthy, thoughts shared recently by none other than Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa.
The federal cabinet's blind leap headlong into the announcement of setting up media tribunals, not unexpectedly, elicited a strong negative reaction from the media bodies, including the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE), Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the Pakistan Broadcasting Association (PBA). The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the political opposition have also come out strongly against the government's proposal. The government seems to have been rocked onto the back foot by the response, prompting it to beat a hasty face-saving retreat with the lame damage control statement that all 'stakeholders' would be taken on board before any decision is finalised in the matter.
The government's anti-democratic mindset has been betrayed by this foolish move. Federal cabinet ministers are expected to know the provisions of Article 19 of our Constitution, enshrining freedom of the media and expression as central to democracy, as they should be. If redressal of complaints mechanisms in place like the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority's (Pemra's) Council of Complaints or the Press Council of Pakistan (PCP) are found unsatisfactory, the solution is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but rather seek tightening of the procedures of these bodies. They do of course suffer from being government set-ups, with all the negative attributes associated with state-controlled regulatory bodies. Unfortunately, the media, both print and electronic, has been discussing drafts of a self-regulatory architecture or regime for decades without any conclusion or outcome. That has left this space open to governmental intrusion and control.
What is the historically evolved and currently accepted role of the media in democracy? Current wisdom, gleaned from around three hundred years of experience since the print media first appeared, joined subsequently by the electronic, points in the direction of the media's role of a watchdog of the public interest. In this role, the media acquired over time the courage and conviction to speak truth to power. Anything less would today be considered a disservice to democracy and the highest ideals of mankind.
Incidentally, one does not know at times whether to laugh or to cry at the manner in which distorted understandings become accepted shibboleths in our milieu. Take for example the description: 'media is the fourth pillar of the state'. The bright spark who may have coined the phrase in Pakistan was obviously inspired by the phrase 'fourth estate'. But whether by a slip of the pen or conscious stretching of the definition of the role of the media to a 'fourth pillar of the state', the formulation by now is solidly entrenched amongst our journalists and writers, some of whom are highly educated, bright and experienced. What is the difference between these two formulations?
The phrase 'fourth estate' owes its origins to the French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew the monarchy and established a Republic. In political parlance in France at the time, there were three classes or 'estates' in society, the clergy (church), nobility (aristocracy), and commoners (the people). The relatively newly emerged and growing print media came to be dubbed the 'fourth estate' to reflect its increasing prominence and power in informing society about the public interest. We in Pakistan have gone a step further and in dubbing the media the 'fourth pillar of the state' have emasculated the idea of a public watchdog. The implication of this unthinking formulation also is that the media is in some mysterious ways part of the state. Nothing could be a bigger travesty or joke with the role of the media in a democratic society as it has evolved over time.
Repressive, anti-democratic regimes attack the media first and foremost when it points out flaws or mistakes of the incumbents. When challenged by the masses, such regimes mistakenly think throttling the media will kill protest. Egypt's revolution that began in 2011 with the Arab Spring but was derailed by the military coup that brought Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to power in 2013, seems to have found a new lease of life with mass protests breaking out recently in all major cities. Of course these were quelled since they were largely spontaneous and suffered from the same weakness as the movement in 2011: no organised force to channelise the people's protest towards a seizure of power. The Muslim Brotherhood emerged from this struggle as the only organised political party, won the election in 2012, but was overthrown by the military at a time when it foolishly pushed for Islamisation, thereby losing the support of the millions of participants in the Arab Spring who did not subscribe to the Muslim Brotherhood's religiously-based programme. The Sissi regime too has resorted to the same tactics of browbeating the media, despite the fact Egypt lacks a media free of state control!
Military dictators and anti-democratic regimes instinctively try to quell a free media and expression, knowing their power to influence public opinion. But this paranoia, whether in the case of Sissi or Imran Khan, sometimes proves a stretch too far.
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