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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO A GOVERNMENT OF JUDGES: A STORY OF THE PAKISTANI SUPREME COURT'S STRATEGIC EXPANSION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE LAW SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF JURISPRUDENCE BY ASHER ASIF QAZI CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2018 © COPYRIGHT 2018 ASHER ASIF QAZI DEDICATED TO AMI & BABA TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. vi LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ vii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER I: THE STRATEGIC ROAD TO CONTEMPT OF COURT ....................................................... 15 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 16 I. Embracing Disobedience: The Strategic Framework .......................................................... 20 II. The Supreme Court of Pakistan: Embracing Disobedience ................................................ 33 III. Deciphering the SCP’s strategy.......................................................................................... 56 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 71 CHAPTER II: CAPTURING THE CIVIL SERVICE ................................................................................ 75 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 75 I. A History of the Pakistani Civil Service: the Tools of Political Capture .............................. 87 II. “Capturing” the Civil Service ............................................................................................... 98 III. Testing the Court’s Command of the Bureaucracy ........................................................... 129 IV. Public Support for “Capturing” the Civil Service ............................................................. 156 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 170 iv CHAPTER III: JUDICIAL STRATEGY AND THE PAKISTANI SUPREME COURT’S ALLIANCE WITH THE MILITARY .................................................................................................................................... 178 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 178 I. Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan: Background and Current Setting .............................. 191 II. The Court and the Army: Mapping the Relationship (2005-2015) .................................... 213 III. The Strategy of Judicial Deference and the Military ........................................................ 261 Conclusion – The New Equilibrium: A Network of Unelected Institutions ........................... 282 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1 – Contempt petitions registered before the SCP between the years 2000-2013 .............. 37 Table 2 – Chief Justices of Pakistan between the years 2002-2015 ............................................. 40 Table 3 – Analysis of Sample Matters Which Note Disobedience ............................................... 45 Table 4 – Categorization of Sample by Factual Issue ................................................................... 46 Table 5 – Categorization of Sample by Identified Executive Issue .............................................. 48 Table 6 – Year-wise breakdown of suo motu actions taken by the SCP ...................................... 66 Table 7 – Year Wise Breakdown of Number of Orders Passed in Sample .................................. 70 Table 8 – Year Wise Breakdown of Number of Orders Passed in Suo Motu (sample) Cases ... 118 Table 9 – Frequency of appearance of senior civil servants in suo motu case proceedings ....... 119 Table 10 – Frequency of specific directions recorded in suo motu case proceedings ................ 120 Table 11 – Year-wise Institution/Disposal Statistics for the Human Rights Cell ...................... 158 Table 12 – Breakdown of Sample ............................................................................................... 222 Table 13 – Year-wise Breakdown of Cases Impacting Military Prerogatives............................ 224 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 – Public Approval of the Supreme Court ....................................................................... 51 Figure 2 – Public Perceptions of Institutional Power ................................................................... 52 Figure 3 – Respect for the Supreme Court.................................................................................... 52 Figure 4 – Trust and Confidence in the Chief Justice of Pakistan ................................................ 53 Figure 5 – Willingness to Protest on Command of Party Leader ................................................. 54 Figure 6 – Willingness to Protest after Supreme Court Order ...................................................... 55 Figure 7 – Public Support for the Chief Justice’s Authority to Appoint Civil Servants ............ 164 Figure 8 – Public Support for the Court’s Authority to Supervise Investigations ...................... 164 Figure 9 – Public Support for the Court’s Authority to Dismiss Government Servants ............ 166 Figure 10 – Public Support for the Chief Justice’s Authority to Appoint SC Judges ................ 168 Figure 11 – Public Support for Chief Justice’s Authority to Remove SC Judges ...................... 168 Figure 12 – Number of Cases in Sample which Impacted Military Prerogatives ...................... 222 Figure 13 – Military Prerogatives: Sample Representation Trend Line (moving averages) ...... 223 Figure 14 – Breakdown of Cases Impacting Military Prerogatives ............................................ 225 vii ABSTRACT The recent experience of the Pakistani Supreme Court (“Court”) is puzzling for many; this dissertation focuses on three separate (but related) issues of judicial strategy which follow from the Court’s experience. The first chapter explores why the Court willingly and aggressively took on cases which predictably attracted disobedience. Among other things, I argue that disobedience in these cases did not damage the Court’s legitimacy and may have even allowed it to build supportive constituencies across the public. The second chapter seeks to discuss the Court’s implementation strategy by focusing on its attempt to capture the bureaucracy. The Court remarkably made civil servants more amenable to judicial (as opposed to political) control, by attempting to alter the cost and benefit structure of the bureaucracy. The third chapter examines the Court’s success in warding off attacks from the executive. I argue that while the Court’s public support and a fragmented political elite have certainly facilitated judicial power, these factors are not enough to completely explain the exceedingly immutable position of Pakistani judiciary. This chapter proposes civil-military imbalance as an explanatory variable and discusses, in particular, the Court’s treatment of military prerogatives between the years 2005- 2015. This dissertation offers an empirical account of over 1545 orders passed by the Court between the years 2002-2016, primarily in its suo motu jurisdiction. The vast majority of these orders are not approved for reporting and have accordingly not been the subject of academic debate. I also share results from a recent (2017) nationally representative survey conducted by this author in collaboration with Gallup Pakistan. This dissertation provides important findings which go against current thought in the field of judicial behavior. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Numerous people have shaped and supported this work. One of my earliest benefactors, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, was perhaps most influential in this reference. My first real interaction with the Supreme Court of Pakistan was under his tutelage as a Law Clerk. This experience was not only priceless in terms of the legal training I received, but was also instrumental in shaping my perspective on how the law could (and should) impact society. Indeed, this experience first made me curious about the practical effects that judgments of the Court could make to our daily lives. Over the years, Justice Khawaja has supported both my intellectual development and curiosity. He was always available to answer questions and entertain my foolhardy ideas. Though we disagreed at times on the precise role for the Court, he always indulged me. His openness to new ideas and arguments (even where they came from a lowly fresh graduate of law), was indeed unheard of among his contemporaries at the Court. So was his commitment to empirical analysis. To be sure, much of the data that I have analyzed as part of this dissertation was made available to me only because he facilitated my access to it.1