Critically Evaluating the Role of the Judiciary in the Good Governance Paradigm: A Study of Pakistan

In this dissertation, I critically evaluate the central role assigned to the judiciary in “the good governance” paradigm (as promoted by international institutions such as the World Bank), through a study of Pakistan. I argue that the paradigm’s focus on institutional arrangements/rearrangements, in order to produce a strong judiciary, judicial reforms, and to implement ‘the rule of law’, is problematic. I find, in contrast, and based on a detailed historical study of the different judicial regimes in the post-colonial era, that the judiciary is a part of the state, and has served to reproduce the state, in its democratic and military forms, as well as political and structural inequality in Pakistan. I document in detail how the judiciary increasingly gained autonomy in state power leading to result in what I term as a ‘judicial dictatorship’ by the 2000s.

Through the thesis, I advance an alternative structural analysis of the state and institutional arrangements, using a class analysis and historical-contextual approach. My study argues that a strong (‘activist’) judiciary cannot be a substitute for a weak and inadequately representative legislature. The fallback position of the judiciary - in promoting a ‘rights’ discourse, or protection of minorities - is also an inadequate remedy for the lack of a deeper democracy in the society. My research in Pakistan contributes to the view that the role of the judiciary ultimately is to uphold political ends crafted elsewhere, rather than be seen as an agent to ‘cause’ political betterment. This study is based on most of the relevant case law in the post-colonial era, primary sources such as interviews, speeches, and judge’s monographs, as well as the available secondary material such as journal articles, books, and newspaper reports.