1 - Introduction

Summary

In addition to providing an overview of the book and its methodological orientation, the introductory chapter highlights three key facets of constitutionalism in Pakistan. Firstly, it is through the consistent development of the judicial review of administrative action, even under military rule, that Pakistan’s superior courts have acquired the power to mediate inter-state tensions. Secondly, the courts’ increasing capacity to mediate state–society dialectics – arising out of the demands of various groups and classes on the periphery of the state – also had much of its basis in the judicial review of executive action. Thirdly, Pakistan’s courts strategically re-situated themselves from time to time and re-fashioned their role in accordance with fundamental shifts in constitutional politics, state structure and state-society dialectics charted in this book.