Pakistan, Oct. 3 -- A Federal Constitutional Court judgment in the Nadia Sarwar workplace harassment case has reopened a question Pakistani women have grappled with for years: what, in law, counts as harassment?

The dispute began with complaints made by a National Bank of Pakistan employee in 2012 and 2013. The Federal Ombudsman imposed compulsory retirement on two employees; the President later reduced the penalty to censure, while the Islamabad High Court restored the harsher punishment. Last month, the FCC set that judgment aside, holding that the conduct had to be examined against the statutory definition in force at the time.

Parliament amended the law in 2022 and expressly included discrimination on the basis of gender that "may o...