Courting Constitutionalism
The Politics of Public Law and Judicial Review in Pakistan

Presents a deeply contextualized account of public law and judicial review in Pakistan.

Moeen Cheema (Author)

9781108831888, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 December 2021

256 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.559 kg

'Moeen Cheema's account of the Pakistani judiciary's evolution into a key actor in what Ran Hirschl calls constitutional “mega-politics” is thoughtful, rigorous and informative. Its contribution to scholarship is not restricted to Pakistani or subcontinental constitutionalism alone. This study of the dramatic growth of judicial power in a context that has oscillated between military, quasi-military and hybrid-civil regimes is a serious provocation to a field that continues to debate the legitimacy of judicial review largely within the narrow confines of the “counter-majoritarian difficulty” in democratic regimes. The book's historical institutionalist method offers rich insights for appreciating how courts, as strategic constitutional institutions, manage not only to survive and but also to thrive in seemingly inhospitable ground.' Tarunabh Khaitan, Head of Research, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford

Over the last decade, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has emerged as a powerful and overtly political institution. While the strong form of judicial review adopted by the Supreme Court has fostered the perception of a sudden and ahistorical judicialisation of politics, the judiciary's prominent role in adjudicating issues of governance and statecraft was long in the making. This book presents a deeply contextualised account of law in Pakistan and situates the judicial review jurisprudence of the superior courts in the context of historical developments in constitutional politics, evolution of state structures and broader social transformations. This book highlights that the bedrock of judicial review has remained in administrative law; it is through the consistent development of the 'Writ jurisdiction' and the judicial review of administrative action that Pakistan's superior courts have progressively carved an expansive institutional role and aggrandised themselves to the status of the regulator of the state.

1. Introduction
2. Postcolonial legality: fragments of the rule of law and constitutionalism
3. Martial rule: military?bureaucratic authoritarianism and 'basic' constitutionalism
4. Elective dictatorship: socialist populism and the myth of a consensus constitution
5. Praetorian governmentality: Islamisation of laws and the genesis of substantive constitutionalism
6. Indirect praetorianism: 'public interest litigation' and the first wave of judicial activism
7. Military?civil composite: 'military incorporated' and the 'lawyers' movement'
8. Corporatist governance: the 'Chaudhry court' and 'judicial proactivism'
9. Conclusion: judicialisation of politics in Pakistan.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Laws of Specific jurisdictions [LN], Public international law [LBB], Comparative law [LAM]