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5 - Praetorian Governmentality

Islamisation of Laws and the Genesis of Substantive Constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2021

Moeen Cheema
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Canberra
David Dyzenhaus
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Thomas Poole
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

Chapter 5 highlights the emergence of a distinctly praetorian governmentality in the next cycle of military rule in the 1980s. Having displaced an elected government, the military regime of General Zia ul Haq (1977–88) set about the task of refining the blueprint for military rule. What was distinctive, however, about this form of praetorian governmentality as compared to the earlier period of military rule was the hegemonic ideation of political legitimacy predicated on religion. The military regime visibly embarked on the agenda of 'Islamising' the constitution and the laws. New Shariat courts were given unprecedented powers of judicial review of legislation for conformity with Islamic law at the same time that the fundamental rights provisions of the Constitution remained under suspension, and the superior courts’ Writ jurisdiction was incapacitated. Nonetheless, Islamisation also enabled the superior courts to re-orient their public law jurisprudence and to bolster their legitimacy. Pakistan’s appellate courts learnt to capitalise on this new rhetoric and restructured a more assertive form of judicial review grounded in the normative bedrock of Islamic legality.

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Chapter
Information
Courting Constitutionalism
The Politics of Public Law and Judicial Review in Pakistan
, pp. 108 - 137
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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