EDITORIAL: Given their old age and nothing much at hand to do, a telephone talk was just a normal affair between the two elderly ladies — the mother-in-law of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and the wife of a prominent lawyer.

But who knew that there are narks who want 2023 to be 1984 (George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 1984, it was the state that determined what constituted acceptable speech in keeping society orderly).

That there was nothing extraordinary about the conversation is a fact. As we all do, these ladies too talked about the ongoing political situation and who was doing what. But they did not know it was 1984 and their conversation was being overheard and recorded.

Moreover, given the ladies’ relevance to the ongoing court conundrum, their conversation was made public as an audio leak as a weapon by the anti-CJP forces. Within 24 hours, not only did their conversation become talk-show sensational grist on television and come word by word as a report from the print media, the anti-CJP political warriors were also in the field, brandishing their swords.

The battle is on; but it’s not likely to last very long, so to speak. Yet, there is a question now that begs a plausible answer from the perpetrators who want Pakistan to become a 1984 dystopia.

Secret monitoring of telephonic connections is of course an inherent right of the state and every government uses it to ensure national security and public peace. But there is a proviso to it.

According to which, the laws inconsistent with or in derogation of Fundamental Rights are void.

Surveillance of the telephonic conversion between these two women was one such violation under Article 14 of the Constitution.

Therefore, more critical than what these women talked about would be the identity of the person or persons that secretly monitored their conversation and then made it public for political benefit.

This should not have happened, and more so because it can only be done in connivance with the state apparatus, which is said to be the ultimate custodian and defender of citizens’ right of privacy.

Not ideally, but compulsorily, the government should come up with an explanation as to why the telephone conversation of the two ladies was spied upon and its contents were made public.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023