Introduction
In Pakistan’s post-colonial legal landscape, criminal legislation has predominantly been state-centric; citizen-centric, rights-based legislation has remained the exception rather than the rule. The Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act, 2021 (the 2021 Act) stands as a notable example of such citizen-centric legislation.
The Act is distinctive in several respects. First, it moves beyond the government-to-government legislative format that had served as the template since 1947, wherein federating units merely obliged one another to undertake designated tasks, and instead ooperationalizes the principle of cooperative federalism by directly linking the Ministry of Law and Justice at the federal level to field offices such as commissioners and heads of district police in the provinces.
Second, rather than relying on the bureaucracy to frame delegated rules, the Act introduced an administrative innovation in the form of a ‘special committee’ comprising both official and non-official members, tasked with codifying working processes into delegated legislation that fills in the operational details necessary for action on the ground. Since its inception, the special committee has been instrumental in promulgating five sets of rules under the 2021 Act, the latest of which are the Anti-Rape (Victim and Witness Protection) Rules. These rules were notified in the official gazette on 13th April 2026. This article examines the theoretical underpinnings of these Rules and proceeds to outline their salient features.
Theoretical Perspectives
A foundational principle of the adversarial criminal justice system, as practiced in Pakistan, is that the state shall remain neutral and shall not align itself with either the accused or the victim. This axiomatic position, however, is increasingly being revisited — both in dedicated witness protection legislation and in the Rules under consideration — reflecting a broader normative shift towards victim-centered justice. The theoretical basis for this shift draws from several competing perspectives within criminology.
Professor Stephen Schaffer, in his Introduction to Criminology, identifies three distinct views on the place of the victim within criminological thought. The first holds that a victim-centric approach falls outside the domain of classical criminology altogether, given that foundational theorists such as Lombroso, Garofalo, and Ferri were preoccupied with the offender and made no meaningful reference to the victim’s relationship to crime. The second view contends, to the contrary, that the victim lies at the very heart of criminology, as victim-related inquiry falls squarely within one of the ‘two major dynamic parts of criminology’ — namely, criminal etiology (the study of causes and factors affecting crime) and penology and correction (the study of consequences and responses to crime). On this view, to understand crime without accounting for its human cost is to offer only a partial analysis. The third view treats victim-centric strategies as belonging to an entirely separate field: victimology, which studies the victim’s experience, vulnerability, and relationship with the offender and the justice system independent of traditional criminological frameworks.
American criminologists, however, have charted a different course by situating the victim-centric approach within the paradigm of administrative criminology — a school of thought that shifts focus away from the causes of crime and the psychology of offenders, and towards the practical management and prevention of crime. Within this framework, witness and victim protection are not merely humanitarian considerations but functional necessities, as the integrity of the prosecution process depends on the safety and cooperation of those who have been wronged. It is this administrative criminological logic that underlies the legislative momentum in Pakistan towards victim protection, a trend most visibly reflected in legislation concerning women and children, and one that has been steadily, if gradually, gaining ground over the past two decades.
The Anti-Rape (Victim and Witness Protection) Rules, 2025
The 2025 Rules have been issued under sections 8 and 19 of the 2021 Act. Styled as the Anti-Rape (Victim and Witness Protection) Rules, 2025, the Rules strengthen the existing legal framework for the protection of victims and witnesses in Gender Based Violence (GBV) cases. The salient features of the 2025 Rules are outlined below.
Victim and Witness Protection System
Section 8 of the 2021 Act mandates the establishment of a victim and witness protection system through delegated rules. The system, as envisaged by the Act, may comprise the following elements:
- Special security arrangements for witnesses and victims;
- Concealment of identity;
- Distance recording of testimonies through videoconferencing, audio-video links, and modern devices;
- Relocation of victims and witnesses;
- Provision of reasonable financial assistance;
- Compensation to legal heirs of protected victims and witnesses; and
- Safe-houses and Dar-ul-Aman.
Assistance to Victim and Witness
The 2025 Rules are court-centric in their orientation: they vest in judges the authority to order assistance for victims and witnesses and lay down the eligibility criteria for individuals who may avail the protection and assistance of the law enforcement mechanism.
Non-Disclosure of Identity of Victim
In accordance with section 26 of the 2021 Act, the 2025 Rules prohibit the disclosure of a victim’s identity. Going beyond the statutory minimum, the Rules further obligate both the police and the prosecution to maintain this confidentiality. Rule 4 specifically requires that a police officer either omit or substitute the victim’s name in the First Information Report (FIR) and all other investigation-related records. It may be noted that this requirement sits in some tension with the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, which is identification-centric in its approach and does not readily accommodate such omissions. The Rules nonetheless address this practical difficulty by prescribing a standard form through which a police officer may obtain the victim’s permission for disclosure of identity where required in pleadings.
Special Security Measures
The 2025 Rules empower judges to order special security measures for victims and witnesses. The practical burden of implementing such orders falls on the police department, which presently lacks a dedicated budgetary allocation for this purpose. This is possibly a gap that risks rendering these provisions aspirational rather than operational. The Rules additionally provide special measures in cases involving child victims, guided by the principle of the “best interest” of the child.
Examination Of Witnesses Through Audio-Visual Links
The 2025 Rules mark a significant step in integrating technology into the legal framework for victim and witness protection. Courts are now empowered to permit the recording of testimonies through audio-visual links, reducing the need for victims and witnesses to be physically present in an often intimidating courtroom environment. The Rules also introduce the concept of a court-appointed ‘coordinator’. This mechanism is not found in any other legislation in Pakistan. The coordinator is tasked with overseeing the rights of victims and facilitating their participation in criminal trials, and the framework notably extends this support to victims and witnesses located outside Pakistan as well.
Media Reporting and Access to Courtroom
The 2025 Rules empower courts to restrict access to courtroom proceedings and to direct media outlets to refrain from reporting on such proceedings in the interest of justice. This is a welcome development, given that GBV cases are particularly susceptible to sensational and prejudicial media coverage that can compound the harm suffered by victims and undermine the integrity of the trial process.
The Witness Protection Legal Regime in Pakistan
The 2025 Rules do not exist in a legislative vacuum. Dedicated witness protection legislation has existed at both the federal and provincial levels for some years, and the Rules must be read in conjunction with this broader framework. All four provinces have enacted specific legislation on the subject: the Sindh Witness Protection Act, 2013; the Balochistan Witness Protection Act, 2016; the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act, 2017 (federal); the Punjab Witness Protection Act, 2018; and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Witness Protection Act, 2021. The existence of this legislative architecture is reassuring, but enactment alone is insufficient. These laws must be adequately and sustainably funded if victims and witnesses are to derive any meaningful benefit from their provisions.
Way Forward
As outlined above, the 2025 Rules represent an extension of the administrative criminological paradigm, which prioritizes the prevention and management of crime over the interrogation of its root causes. This legislative trajectory is broadly positive and reflects a welcome maturation in Pakistan’s approach to GBV-related justice. However, the true measure of these Rules will not be found in their text but in their implementation. For the 2025 Rules to transcend paper reform, they must be backed by dedicated funding, institutional capacity, and political will so that the protection they promise to victims and witnesses translates into tangible safety, and their engagement with the criminal justice system becomes genuinely restorative and rehabilitative.
