Introduction

Authors

  • Altaf Qadir

Abstract

Pakistan has a troubled constitutional history since its inception as a nation state. In the beginning it adopted Government of India Act 1935 as interim constitution with some amendments. The first Constituent Assembly took a long time to frame constitution and only succeeded to define the direction of the constitution by passing the Objective Resolution in 1949. The first constitutional crisis arose in 1954 when the Governor General dissolved the Constituent Assembly because of his disagreement to the proposed constitution. Therefore, first constitution of Pakistan, developed in 1956, was abrogated after two years by the first President of Pakistan, Major-General Sikander Mirza. He dissolved the national and provincial legislatures and imposed Martial Law in October 1958, appointed General Ayub Khan as the Chief Martial Law Administrator. The military dictator framed a new constitution in 1962, authoritative in nature with presidential system of government. Indeed, few nations have gone through political and constitutional trials like Pakistan in such a short period of time. This phenomenon of repeated interventions and experimentation with Pakistani constitutional vicissitudes contributed to a recurrent pattern of crisis that hugely affected the credibility of central state institutions like the parliament. The role of Pakistan parliament in terms of smooth constitutional development cannot be termed exemplary. However, despite many obstacles, it was able to frame a constitution for the country in 1973.

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Published

2020-02-16