One-party rule or civilian martial law?
The slugfest between the PTI government and the opposition, particularly the two largest opposition parties, the PML-N and PPP, is intensifying. The Sharif brothers are cooling their heels in jail…
Who will celebrate martial law?
The ‘awam’ in Azad Jammu and Kashmir have just delivered a package of sweets to Imran Khan by electing the PML-N with a thumping majority. Only three days earlier, Imran…
Prospects of martial law
Many think that a number of factors leave no chance for military rule in Pakistan, including a free judiciary and media in Pakistan and an elected government. No doubt, the…
Martial law
On May 24, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry warned that the “government should follow Constitution before martial law imposed.” In all probability, the government is not going to follow the…
A bogus law
ON March 1, 2023, the Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld the single most crucial time-limit provided for in the Constitution: provincial polls in 90 days. To any reasonable person — forget any…
‘Partial Law’
Neither explicitly martial nor ethic-ally civil, Pakistan in 2023 is experiencing an unsavoury blend of both forms — which can be termed ‘Partial Law’. The inherently authoritarian aspect of the military, newly intensified by the 9th May violence,…
The man behind our sedition law
“Power precedes liberty – …liberty, from the very nature of things, is dependent upon power….” Thus wrote the English lawyer, judge, writer and philosopher, James Fitzjames Stephen in his book…
General’s ‘general law’ vs ‘special law’
The Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 was promulgated by General Pervez Musharraf, through a Presidential Ordinance on September 13, 2001, repealing the Income Tax Ordinance, 1979, which was also introduced by…
US lawmakers say police downplayed threat of violence before Capitol siege
As the mob swarmed into the U.S. Capitol, Pennsylvania congresswoman Susan Wild took cover, squeezing into a tight aisle in an upper-floor gallery and inching across the floor as supporters…
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…
