The Limits of an Activist Supreme Court

Nine months since reinstatement the Pakistani Supreme Court has executed several plans that have both fueled public outcry for change and made the federal government uneasy. The following is a good article on the subject in DAWN:

"Statements by lawyers, observations by judges and ceaseless TV talk-shows appear to have given rise to a general expectation that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the National Reconciliation Ordinance is going to transform the country’s constitutional and political landscape.

That is unlikely for the simple reason that the court can only interpret the constitution and not amend it, much less enact a new one.


Further, the court can disqualify an erring leader but cannot name another to replace him, nor can it direct the policies of political parties.

All that the SC is expected to do (and that much it must) is to decide whether the purpose and contents of the NRO are in violation of the constitution. The government counsel Kamal Azfar’s argument of the country being at a ‘crossroads’ where one road leads to stability and another to disaster sounds like harking back to the doctrine of necessity yet again." More