Courts, crises, controversies
One of the most significant features of the 18th Amendment was the withdrawal of the power to dissolve the National Assembly from the president. In 1985, this discretionary authority was…
Structured discretion, unstructured courts
The principle that “discretion must be structured” is a maxim often repeated by our Supreme Court. But that maxim appears not to apply to the chief justice of Pakistan. There…
Reverse-engineering the Supreme Court
Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial is a good man faced with an impossible situation. No matter what he does, he is likely to be lambasted by one side or another.…
The rule of lawyers
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain. – Harvey Dent. (Fictional character, begins as a hero.) We are told that the…
Courts & the poor
THE judgement of the Supreme Court permitting the demolition of houses along the Gujjar and Orangi nullahs has reinforced the opinion of a number of civil society organisations that Karachi’s planning and…
A convention of lawyers
It was an array of the most committed activists and leaders of civil society, human rights, lawyers’ fraternity, and media professionals in the country – gathered in Islamabad on June…
Courts for businesses
The World Bank’s Doing Business Report (2019) ranked Pakistan at 156 out of 190 economies on the ‘enforcing contracts’ indicator, based on the cost and quality of judicial processes, and…
Lawyers’ duties
LAWYERS, generally, are not liked. Whether justified or not, this phenomenon is not unique to Pakistan. Shakespeare in Henry VI, for instance, has provided the popular culture with his famous…
Lawyers’ lawlessness
In a society like ours where rate of literacy is woefully low and poverty and backwardness are rampant lawyers and doctors naturally constitute vital part of intelligentsia. They are supposed…
Aggressive lawyers
MORE disconcerting than the lawyers’ raid on the Punjab Institute of Cardiology was the sight of respectable political elders of the lawyer community defending them on electronic media. Some said…
