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THE inviolability of a person’s privacy of home and dignity is a fundamental right under Article 14 of the Constitution. It is one of the rare strongly worded constitutional rights which has not been further saddled with ‘reasonable restrictions as per law’. However, despite the drafters specifically using the word ‘privacy’ (unlike in the US Constitution where the right to privacy was recognised by interpreting penumbras cast by other constitutional protections), there is still scant understanding of what the term ‘privacy’ really means and what types of restrictions it entails.
In simple speak, the right to privacy can be best understood as just that: the right to keep private, the right of a person to keep any matter free from any type of unwarranted interference or surveillance (government or private). The right to privacy is divided into four major substantive areas: territorial, bodily, communications and information privacy.
Territorial privacy is arguably the oldest conception of privacy. Arising from the capitalist concept of land ownership — territorial privacy entails the right of a person to enjoy solitude within their own home or any other property they might own. A strict textual interpretation of Article 14 would suggest that this is the only form of privacy guaranteed in Pakistan. However, the Supreme Court in ‘Mohatarma Benazir Bhutto vs President of Pakistan’ read Article 14 expansively, to provide the blanket of privacy protections to all facets of...
Read Full Story: https://www.dawn.com/news/1698120/right-to-privacy
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