Democracy and Rule of Law in Pakistan – Challenges and Opportunities

This paper analyzes the outlook of democracy and rule of law in Pakistan, as promoted by the Pakistani Lawyer’s Movement.

By Nusrat Sheikh
 

This paper analyzes the outlook of democracy and rule of law in Pakistan, as promoted by the Pakistani Lawyer’s Movement. It identifies the dominance of the army in the civil-military relations as the main reason for the lack of institutional democracy, the existence of structural conflict and violence. The Lawyers’ movement, whose history and current situation are described in the paper, challenges this dominance. The author concludes that the new civilian government has made a few improvements towards a better human rights situation in the country, but that still much has to be done.

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This Article has been published first in ORIENT – German Journal for Politics, Economics and Culture of the Middle East
Orient I/2009: Focus: Pakistan - Afghanistan