Anatomy of Constitutional Cases
By Taimoor Kamal Malik

Pakistan has a savant history of constitutionalism, rather, a chequered history of constitutionalism where at the inception, the golden tenets of justice and law-making shelved in the cupboard and the key was lost in doldrums. This has been the conspicuous characteristic of Pakistani politics where either the law-makers went to gallows or its implementation went to dogs. Every now or then, we come across a novel legal proposition which entailed a new judgment which then had to alter, modify or amend at the altar of Law of Necessity or for state's political stability. All sorts of catchy phrases and shibboleths had always been the cherished whistling wand in the hands of the mighty and influential people who whisked away the state-craft in accordance with their whims and freaks. Law is the only source of redemption. Indubitably, supremacy and rule of law should be the order of the day to administer and run an equalitarian and egalitarian state but somehow or the other, Pakistan remained devoid of this boon, bonanza and benison.There are three pillars of a modern state vis-à-vis., Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. Role of each cannot be truncated and cantankerous. In Pakistan, there has been a rat race amongst the three pillars to over-awe the other but that has run amuck in our body-politic resultantly; stalemate. and To add fuel to fire, the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 is an embodiment of imperfect piece of legislation where there is obvious departure from check and balance system that keep the three pillars on even keel. We are yet to confess and profess that the present dichotomy and dilemma in our state of affairs may be attributed to this aspect. One state pillar is trying to outwit the other. The recent developments in our body-politics may be a step in that direction of institutional supremacy which again may lead to auto-checkmate.In this backdrop, the present study explores the concept of interpretation of statutes and strives to fortify that there are different forms of rules of interpretation of a constitution and a statute. It actually tries to debunk this belief of oneness of rules of interpretation for the both types of legislation. In addition, the book gives a brief note on some of the vital constitutional cases in our history before the year 2000 and the next chapter examines and analyzes the judgment after the year 2000 till-date by reproducing the relevant Articles of the Constitution which were affected, changed and re-interpreted. It then tries to analyze those judgments whether they were /are in consonance with the constitutional provisions of that prevalent time or some new grounds have been un-earthed subsequently. This paper is for the legal fraternity and especially for those who have a taste for political science and the constitutional moots in some of our landmark judgments.