ABSTRACT
Even a cursory perusal of Pakistan’s press and international reports on Pakistan shows a dramatic increase in sectarian violence, inflammatory statements about different sects, and chronic demands to declare one or another sect outside the pale of Islam. Pakistan’s superior judiciary has seen fit to abdicate this role completely when it comes to the protection of religious minorities. This chapter examines the nature of the judicial abdication. Freedom of religion jurisprudence in Pakistan is a three-phase journey from unequivocal protection of the freedom to validation of persecution and discrimination. A constitutional petition was filed in the Lahore High Court, challenging the ordinance as violating the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to profess, practice, and propagate religion. As successive political crises resulted in the erosion of constitutional governance and growth of praetorianism, guarantees of religious freedom and equality yielded to political expedience, intolerance, and religious orthodoxy.
