Bill replaces colonial-era labels with ‘mental disorder’ across the Penal Code, criminal procedure and evidence law, five years after a landmark Supreme Court ruling
LAHORE: Pakistan’s Senate has passed a bill that strips terms such as “lunatic”, “insane”, “idiot” and “unsound mind” from the country’s core criminal laws and replaces them with references to “mental disorder”, in a bid to end stigmatising language that dates back to the colonial era.
The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, passed by the upper house on October 19 and moved by Senator Fawzia Arshad as member in charge, amends the Pakistan Penal Code of 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1898 and the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order of 1984. It takes effect immediately once enacted, but must first be passed by the National Assembly and signed by the president.
What changes
The bill rewrites dozens of provisions. In the Penal Code, sections 84, 89, 90 and 98, which deal with criminal responsibility and consent, now refer to “mental disorder” instead of “unsoundness of mind”. References to an “insane person” in the sections on qisas, diyat and hurt become “a person with fully mental challenges”. The provisions on qisas rights where a legal heir is a minor or has a mental disorder are restated.
In the criminal procedure code, sections 464 to 466, which govern what happens when an accused cannot make a defence because of mental illness, are substituted in full. Magistrates and courts must have the accused examined by a civil surgeon or designated medical officer, record findings and postpone proceedings if the person is incapable of defending themselves. Courts may release such a person on security that they will be cared for, or order safe custody, with any detention in a mental health facility to follow provincial mental health laws. “Lunatic asylum” becomes “mental asylum” throughout.
Evidence law illustrations referring to “unsoundness of mind” are also updated.
Why now
The statement of objects and reasons says labels such as “unsound mind”, “lunatic” and “insane” invite ridicule and humiliation of people with mental illness and have been declared outdated by the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases.
It cites the Supreme Court’s 2021 judgment in Safia Bano v Home Department (PLD 2021 SC 488), in which a larger bench ruled that prisoners whose mental illness leaves them unable to understand the reason for their punishment cannot be executed, and directed federal and provincial governments to replace such terms with medical language across all laws. The ruling arose from the cases of death-row prisoners including Kanizan Bibi and Imdad Ali, whose families and lawyers had campaigned for years.
A first step, with rough edges
Mental health advocates have long pressed for exactly this change, and the bill brings Pakistani statute closer to modern medical usage. Its drafting is uneven, however. It mixes several new terms, including “mental disorder”, “mental health challenges” and the awkward “person with fully mental challenges”, which is neither a recognised clinical term nor defined in the bill. Lawyers may also note that a renamed “mental asylum” retains the institutional framing that modern mental health law has moved away from.
Language alone will not change outcomes. The 2021 judgment also called for medical boards to assess prisoners and for better mental health care in jails, and implementation has been slow. Pakistan’s justice system, as this newspaper has argued, still moves at different speeds for different people, and critics say vulnerable defendants with mental illness are among those most likely to fall through the cracks.
The Punjab angle
Punjab, home to the Punjab Institute of Mental Health in Lahore, one of the country’s largest psychiatric hospitals, is drafting its own mental health policy framework for 2026 to 2035. Provincial mental health legislation will govern how courts’ custody and treatment orders under the amended procedure code are carried out, giving the province a central role in making the reform work.
The bill now goes to the National Assembly. If passed without changes, it will become law on presidential assent; any amendments would send it back to the Senate. Advocates are likely to push for clearer, consistent terminology before it is finalised.
Leave a Reply