NEARLY two decades since its rollback, our law appears to be reverting to the flawed dispensation of justice under the Zina Ordinance, 1979, that took years of activism and lobbying to challenge and correct.

The Hudood Ordinances, and in particular the Zina Ordinance, brought much notoriety to Pakistan’s legal system as enabling grave miscarriage of justice and serving as an instrument of oppression of women. The Zina Ordinance introduced the offences of zina (adultery and fornication) and zina-bil-jabr (removing the offence of rape from the Pakistan Penal Code [PPC], 1860), which if proved through confession or the eyewitness testimony of four adult male Muslim witnesses would be subject to the penalty of stoning to death. Women, particularly those who defied norms and familial authority, became the primary target of often false accusations of adultery. Following the law’s promulgation, each year over 1,500 cases of zina were registered against women. Given the non-bailable nature of the offence, women accused falsely of zina would languish in jails for years, till their convictions were mostly overturned by appellate courts.

Under the Zina Ordinance, female victims of rape also found themselves in a pernicious legal bind. An allegation of rape, unsupported by the testimony of four male eyewitnesses, would be treated under the law as an admission of illicit intercourse, and therefore of the commission of zina. The pregnancy of a rape victim, in the absence of requisite proof, would also be tantamount to an admission of illicit sex. A rape victim who knocked........

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