Pakistan, April 9 -- When the Punjab Assembly moved to scrap Section 55(1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, a clause that allowed police to arrest anyone who had "no ostensible means of subsistence," it did more than tinker with a statute. It offered a rare acknowledgement that many of Pakistan's legal foundations were designed to discipline colonised subjects rather than serve citizens. This particular provision blurs the line between poverty and criminality. Colonial administrators wrote it to control large populations through fear and suspicion, and today it still haunts the most vulnerable.

In 2021, Lahore police used Section 55(1)(b) to seize two people, one of them a performing?arts teacher, simply because they could not...