The Constitution as a Reflection of Pakistan's Political History: From the Objectives Resolution to Contemporary Constitutionalism
Abstract
It is not possible to comprehend the constitutional history of Pakistan as a series of constitutional documents, amendments and institutional arrangements. More fundamentally, it is a history of the political conflicts in the making and making of the Pakistani state as it tries to carve out spaces of sovereignty, democracy, federalism, Islam, citizenship, judiciary, and relations with un-elected powers. The constitutional development in Pakistan since the Objectives Resolution 1949 to the constitutional battle of the twenty-sixth Amendment has witnessed the political scenario of the times. Thus, the Constitution has served as a legal system as well as a forum for contesting and/or for negotiation among differing visions of the state.
This paper explores the connection and interaction of Pakistan's political developments and constitutional developments, starting from the Objectives Resolution and the first constitutional debates in the 1950s. It subsequently analyses the effect of the 1956 and the 1962 Constitutions, how the military and judge's reaction to any exercise of extra-constitutional power led to the 1973 Constitution, the spirit of Islamization on the 1973 Constitution and the sanctity of fundamental rights, the Eighteenth Amendment and the new federalism, and some recent debates on independence of judiciary and constitutional governance. The paper contends that Pakistan's constitutional experience as a section of this paper reveals that there is a fingerplay between the text and political practice of the constitution. In subsequent constitutional changes they've tried to restore representative government, interstate equilibrium, an independent judiciary, and fundamental rights but times and again constitutionalism has been reconfigured by political pressures. Consequently, state polarized by religion, the conflict between popular sovereignty and institutional authority, and federalism and the rule of law, represent not an abandonment of what happened previously in Pakistan, but rather a step further on a path where these matters are continually contested.
Keywords: Pakistan, constitutionalism, Objectives Resolution, political history, Constitution of 1973, federalism, judicial independence, fundamental rights, democratic governance.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22764323
