Right to reproductive health
AS women, many of us have traversed through the uncomfortable changes brought on by puberty with an incomplete understanding of their meaning and consequences; we often braved, sometimes challenging, pregnancies…
Constitutional amendments
CONSTITUTIONAL office holders, including superior court judges and legislators, swear an oath when assuming office. The oath requires them to act in accordance with the Constitution. Does this mean they…
A Pyrrhic victory
IT was the darkest night of the country’s parliamentary history. The spectacle of two opposition lawmakers from Balochistan — one on a wheelchair and the other, a female member, wrapped in a…
Accounting for the unaccounted
We recently observed the International Day of the Girl Child. The day signifies the aspiration to have a society bereft of the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment…
All that glitters
THE law is all about relationships. Ostensibly, it is a body of rules dictating relationships and the interconnectivity of our shared social experience. States, provinces, governments, statutory bodies, private companies,…
Is there a way out?
PAKISTAN has encountered many difficulties in the past, including a near meltdown of its economy in 1968; a real or engineered breakdown of the political system, which ultimately led to…
Monarchies, dynasties, institutions
It has become de rigueur these days for many commentators to speak alarmingly about the pitfalls of political dynasties. The ‘dynasties’ they particularly disapprove of are the Sharif and the…
Politics of freebies
As Pakistan’s political rivals intensely clash to demolish one another, the British prime minister’s choice this month to return the cost of freebies he received earlier, must serve as a…
At war with itself
IT has gone beyond polemics. The internal fracas has split the country’s top judiciary. While tensions had been simmering for a long time, the latest presidential ordinance amending the Supreme Court Practice…
A work in progress
DURING the past 50 years, the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan has been amended 23 times — an amendment every two years on average. This is no surprise as the constitution…
