Talk on Law Making in Pakistan

On 17th February 2020, I was invited by Prof. Severine Minot to give a talk on Law Making in Pakistan at Habib University.

My talk was guided by the presentation below. It started with the classical question of what law is, and went on to discuss classical tripartite structure of the state: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judicature. Types of legislation were discussed: basic law, primary legislations, secondary legislations and judicial decisions.

The Constitution and its importance as the basic law was discussed. Primary laws and the parliamentary procedure were discussed in detail with some light on money bills and bills to amend the Constitution. This was followed by a discussion about devolution, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and the changes it brought. The Federal Legislative List of the Constitution was also discussed. Secondary legislation and its two most common types were also touched upon.

The 18th Amendment, the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 were considered as examples, and the circumstances and the manner in which they were made were also discussed.

The Industrial Relations Act 2012 was discussed in light of the litigation regarding its vires before the High Court of Sindh and the High Court of Balochistan and the ultimate decision by the Supreme Court.

How criminal laws are enforced and implemented was also discussed, including the role of the prosecution and courts in the criminal justice system.

Unfortunately at this point, time had run out and the talk had to be concluded with a very brief discussion on the solutions to the problems faced by our system.

Here’s the video of the talk which is followed by the slides of the presentation:

I am really thankful to Severine for the invitation to give the talk to her students; they participated very keenly and were well-read. I am really thankful to them for attending and participating.

It was my first time visiting the Habib University campus. In my short visit I really loved the campus.

You can download the original presentation from these OneDrive or Google Drive links.