The LUMS Law Journal (LLJ) was initiated in 2013 at a time when Pakistan was experiencing its first democratic transition after a democratically elected government was completing its full term. At this juncture, constitutional debate was ripe owing to the elections and the 18th Constitutional Amendment. While these issues were and still are being debated, there is a dearth of legal scholarship on this subject. It is for this reason, amongst others, that Constitutional Law and Politics in Pakistan was chosen as the theme for the first issue of the LLJ.

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This comment focuses on the right to fair trial in Pakistan. It shows that despite being a signatory to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Pakistan's legislature only recently included this right in the constitution via the 18th Amendment. It is argued that despite the incorporation of the right to a fair trial in the constitution of Pakistan, its realization does not meet the standard originally envisioned under the Declaration.

This comment pertains to judicial appointments in Pakistan. It explains how the traditional or pre-18th Amendment process of appointing judges gave the judiciary clear dominance over regulating the appointment of judges. Consequently, this process lacked all the necessary checks and balances. The 18th Amendment attempted to change this state of affairs by giving the Parliament a role in judicial appointments by establishing two necessary bodies: the Judicial Commission and the Parliamentary Committee.

This article traces the elevation of the right to education from a Principle of Policy to a Fundamental Right within a comparative context of the Pakistani and Indian Constitutions. The pivotal concern of this article is to assess the impact, if any, of this transition on the way the right to education is envisaged in both countries. It achieves this purpose by reviewing the case law from both jurisdictions to analyse the way courts interpreted this as a fundamental right, even before it was expressly enshrined so in both the constitutions.

This article analyses the provisions regarding the qualifications and disqualifications for Parliamentarians set out in the constitution of Pakistan, and traces their evolution over the years. It establishes that the objective interpretation of these provisions in the past has given way to a more subjective and moralistic approach in the run-up to the 2013 general elections. It further argues that, for the most part, these provisions lay down unascertainable and subjective criteria for qualification and disqualification of a Parliamentarian.

This article analyses the constitutional status of religious minorities within a comparative context of Pakistan and India. This is done by drawing a comparison between not only the discriminatory provisions in the two constitutions, but also between the provisions which seem accommodating towards religious minorities. It is explained that the constitution of India can be construed more favourably towards religious minorities, as opposed to the constitution of Pakistan.

This article analyses the constitutional design about the exercise of emergency powers within a comparative context of Pakistan and India. It critically engages with the operation of the emergency provisions within the constitutional framework of both jurisdictions by comparing the colonial and contemporary structures. It does so by providing a theoretical framework that creates a typology of emergency powers, namely the legislative model and the executive model.

The LUMS Law Journal (LLJ) was initiated in 2013 at a time when Pakistan was experiencing its first democratic transition after a democratically elected government was completing its full term. At this juncture, constitutional debate was ripe owing to the elections and the 18th Constitutional Amendment.

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