Dominion status and the origins of authoritarian constitutionalism in Pakistan

Abstract

Abstract The legal legacy of Dominion status in Pakistan (1947–1956) explains the rise, configuration, and normalization of authoritarian constitutionalism in the country. First, the article analyzes Pakistan’s Dominion constitution as both the constitutional framework to manage a difficult political transition and the juridical basis to frame the country’s new permanent constitution. It is argued that the adoption of an instrumental procedural approach to Westminster constitutionalism in Pakistan during the Dominion period led to the subversion of its substantive underpinnings from within. This approach had a critical long-term impact on the country’s constitutional developments and the framing of the permanent constitution, especially with regard to executive dominance. Second, the litigation over the governor-general’s dissolution of Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly (1947–1954) illuminates the perils of New Dominion constitutionalism and the attempts by Pakistani constitution-makers in both Constituent Assemblies to frame a constitution departing from the Westminster model and to enshrine in the document checks and balances of a legal nature.