Pakistan · Overview
The legal system of Pakistan
A common-law system inherited from British India, layered with Islamic law through a distinct institutional route. The nineteenth-century codes still supply the core of contract, tort, evidence and procedure. What makes Pakistan structurally unusual is the Federal Shariat Court, created in 1980: it may strike down any law it finds repugnant to the injunctions of Islam, on its own motion, with appeal to the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court. The ordinary courts and the Shariat courts therefore both exercise a form of constitutional review, on different criteria.
Legal tradition
Pakistan belongs to the mixed common law and islamic law tradition. A common-law system inherited from British India, layered with Islamic law through a distinct institutional route. The nineteenth-century codes still supply the core of contract, tort, evidence and procedure. What makes Pakistan structurally unusual is the Federal Shariat Court, created in 1980: it may strike down any law it finds repugnant to the injunctions of Islam, on its own motion, with appeal to the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court. The ordinary courts and the Shariat courts therefore both exercise a form of constitutional review, on different criteria.
How power is divided
Federal, with four provinces — Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan — plus Islamabad Capital Territory, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan under distinct constitutional arrangements. The 18th Amendment abolished the Concurrent Legislative List, leaving residual power with the provinces and giving them primary responsibility for education, health, labour and local government. The Council of Common Interests mediates federal-provincial disputes over resources.
Where law comes from
- The Constitution of 1973
- Supreme; includes the repugnancy clause and the fundamental rights chapter.
- Federal and provincial statutes
- Including the surviving British Indian codes as amended.
- Injunctions of Islam
- A test of validity applied by the Federal Shariat Court, not a directly applied code.
- Judicial precedent
- Supreme Court decisions bind all courts under Article 189.
- Customary personal law
- Muslim, Hindu and Christian personal law govern marriage and succession by community.
The legal profession
A single fused profession of advocates, enrolled with a provincial bar council after a law degree and the licensing examination, with separate rights of audience acquired by seniority: enrolment allows appearance in subordinate courts, then the High Court after two years, then the Supreme Court after ten years of High Court practice. The Pakistan Bar Council regulates nationally. Bar associations are politically influential and were central to the 2007-2009 lawyers' movement that secured the restoration of the deposed Chief Justice.
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