Judging the State

For almost five decades, Pakistan has encountered frequent, unresolved political crises. They are woven into its concepts of political community, and have underscored uneasy relationships between state institutions and civil society. Pakistan's politics has also been characterised by incomplete constitution-making, a process that has placed the burden of constitutional interpretation and political change on state instruments ranging from the bureaucracy to the military to the judiciary. The superior courts in particular have played unusually important roles in determining the country's fate,…