In September, the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) ruled in Usman Shahid v Nadia Sarwar that behaviour at work only counts as harassment under the 2010 law if it has a sexual element. Bias, humiliation, or hostility against a woman because she is a woman is not enough on its own. In Islamabad, Sindh, and in federal organisations, this matters less, because Parliament changed the law in January 2022 to cover gender discrimination too, so newer complaints there are still protected, but the 2022 change only applies to the federal law and in Sindh. Punjab and KP never adopted it; Balochistan only added threats, blackmail, and defamation in 2025.
For women in these provinces, protection came from the Supreme Court’s 2023 Nadia Naz review, which read the old law broadly enough to cover gender-based discrimination. By going back to the old wording and refusing to follow that review, the FCC has taken that protection away. As a result, a federal bank employee in Lahore can still complain about gender-based hostility, while a doctor at a Punjab government hospital facing the same treatment now cannot. This shows that complainants do not all uniformly or equally experience the law and its amendments across Pakistan, and their geographical and jurisdictional scope will determine whether they will have access to expanded protection under the 2022 amendments or not. The outcry over the FCC verdict taking away the protection that complainants across Pakistan were benefiting from is, therefore, neither misplaced nor incorrect, as is being stated by some commentators.
The Two Regimes of Harassment Law
For instance, it is being argued that the outcry over the verdict is overblown. This is because the law now has two regimes: that is, (i) conduct before 2022 must be sexual, and (ii) conduct after 2022 is covered if it is sexual or rooted in gender discrimination. The critics also argue that the Nadia Naz review was wrong to read gender discrimination into the old text, because that made the 2022 amendment redundant. Although they correctly state that the FCC misapplied its own test, since the evidence in this case was overtly sexual, their two regimes (pre- and post-2022) exist only under the federal Act and in Sindh.
In Punjab, KP, and possibly even in Balochistan to an extent, there is no “after 2022”. The old, sexual-only definition is still the law today. Therefore, the redundancy argument, even if it is entertained for the sake of discourse, also has no force there, because no second limb exists in those provincial laws for the review to make redundant. Therefore, the critic’s attempt to reassure harassment committees that gender discrimination is still covered may be correct to the extent of Islamabad and Sindh, but it is simply wrong in the case of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and to some extent even in Balochistan, and risks misleading the very people who must apply the law and downplays the impact this judgement has beyond Sindh and ICT.
A federal bank employee in Lahore can still complain about gender-based hostility, while a doctor at a Punjab government hospital facing the same treatment now cannot
As Barrister Rida Hosain also said, “The 2022 amendments have not been adopted in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan. The ‘outrage’ over the FCC judgment is entirely justified. The judgment represents a serious rollback of legal protection afforded to victims. In provinces where the amendments have not been adopted, the consequences are particularly alarming. Victims risk being denied legal protection simply because the harassment they experience is not sexual in nature.”
Legislative Intent and the Supreme Court's Review
Moreover, the belief that, ‘when the legislature amended the definition in 2022 to explicitly cover gender-based discrimination, it also implied that the earlier definition was restrictive, which is why the amendment was needed’, is also extremely problematic and incorrect. The claim that the 2022 amendment shows Parliament thought the original definition was narrow mistakes the reason the amendment was passed. It was not passed into a legal vacuum. It came months after a binding Supreme Court judgement had declared the definition narrow and blamed the legislature for that. The 2021 bench called the Act “cosmetic” and “myopic”, and said that by giving harassment such a restricted meaning, the legislature had undermined the Act’s own purpose. Faced with that ruling, Parliament had to act for future complainants whatever it thought the 2010 text meant. A legislative fix for a judicial reading is not an admission that the reading was right. If anything, it shows Parliament disagreed with it.
The federation’s own conduct settles the point. In September 2021, the Attorney General’s office sought a review of the 2021 judgement; so the federation itself was telling the Supreme Court that the original definition was already broad. In review, the AG argued that the judgement had read harassment too restrictively, ignoring a plausible purposive reading consistent with the Act’s objectives. The state never conceded that the 2010 definition was narrow. In fact, it argued the opposite.
The Supreme Court also dealt with this exact relationship in paragraphs 7 and 8 of the review judgement in 2023. In Para 7, the AG told the Court that the amended definition would apply only prospectively and only under the federal law, so a purposive reading of the original definition was needed for people harassed between 2010 and 2022. The Court found merit in this, noting that otherwise, complaints from that period would be judged under the judgement under review.
In Para 8, the Court relied on the principle that a law’s object can be read from its whole scheme, its preamble, and subsequent legislative developments. It then held that the amendment clarified that harassment can be physical, sexual, or gender discrimination, and that the expanded definition “also testifies to the purposive meaning of Section 2(h)”. So the Supreme Court read the amendment as confirming the broad reading, not contradicting it. However, the critics do not engage with Para 8.
The Redundancy Objection and Direct Evidence
The redundancy objection is also overstated. Legislatures often re-enact a meaning for the avoidance of doubt, especially after a court has created that doubt. The substituted clause is not surplus even on the review reading. It adds stalking, cyberstalking, visual communication, and derogatory gestures, and clause (ii) covers gender discrimination “which may or may not be sexual in nature”. That wording removes any reliance on the double dictionary meaning of “sexual”, which is exactly what the 2021 bench had got wrong.
Finally, a 2022 Parliament’s inferred view is weak evidence of what the 2010 Parliament meant, especially when direct evidence exists. The review bench examined the National Assembly Standing Committee report of the 29th of September 2009 and the National Assembly and Senate debates of 2010, and found they showed the Act was meant to address harassment prompted by gender, not only its sexual forms, including to implement CEDAW and ILO Conventions 100 and 111. An inference drawn from a later amendment cannot outweigh what the enacting Parliament actually said.
It is one thing to offer an analysis of the law as it applies to a certain province, but quite another to assume that that is how it applies elsewhere as well. The consequences of the FCC verdict are not equal, and they differ across the country, which explains why there may be more outcry in certain parts of the country as compared to others. The differing impact of the verdict should not take away from the legitimacy of the outcry simply because it is not being experienced at an equal measure in another.