Two-Track Justice

This thesis investigates whether Pakistan's Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) functions according to its stated legislative intent of combating cybercrimes or operates primarily as an instrument of political speech control. Using mixed methods combining quantitative analysis of enforcement statistics with qualitative examination of court judgments and case studies, the research documents systematic disparities in PECA enforcement based on target identity rather than conduct. Between 2020 and 2024, FIA received 639,564 complaints but secured only 222 convictions (0.03% rate), with women's harassment cases achieving just 0.24% conviction rate. This massive attrition for ordinary citizens contrasts sharply with rapid prosecution of journalists: 150+ cases registered in December 2024 alone, representing 28.5 times the monthly caseload of the Counter-Terrorism Wing. The B4U fraud case demonstrates state capacity for complex digital forensics (4+ years, Rs 3.7 billion recovered), while journalist arrests occur within 48-72 hours, proving capacity constraints are strategic choices rather than technical limitations. The January 2026 Mazari-Chattha case, resulting in 17-year imprisonment for social media posts, marks a shift from process-as-punishment to actual incapacitation. The research introduces the "two-track justice" framework, demonstrating how PECA operates through parallel enforcement pathways: strategic inefficiency exhausting ordinary complainants while selective hyper-efficiency rapidly targets political critics. This pattern is traced alongside the turbulent institutional history of Pakistan's cybercrime apparatus — including the establishment of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) in May 2024, its rules being repealed in October 2024 before it ever became operational, and its formal reconstitution under the 2025 PECA amendments — revealing how institutional instability consistently disadvantages ordinary citizens while leaving enforcement against political targets uninterrupted. The findings validate theoretical predictions from procedural justice theory, process-as-punishment, authoritarian legality, and legal instrumentalism scholarship. The thesis concludes PECA violates Pakistan's ICCPR Article 19 obligations and Pakistani constitutional vagueness standards, functioning as authoritarian legality where formal legal procedures mask systematic political control. Keywords: Pakistan, cybercrime legislation, PECA, digital rights, authoritarian legality, procedural justice, process-as-punishment, two-track justice, freedom of expression, selective enforcement