City Research Online

Abstract

The legal legacy of Dominion status in Pakistan (1947–1956) explains the rise, configuration, and normalization of authoritarian constitutionalism in the country. First, the article analyzes Pakistan’s Dominion constitution as both the constitutional framework to manage a difficult political transition and the juridical basis to frame the country’s new permanent constitution. It is argued that the adoption of an instrumental procedural approach to Westminster constitutionalism in Pakistan during the Dominion period led to the subversion of its substantive underpinnings from within. This approach had a critical long-term impact on the country’s constitutional developments and the framing of the permanent constitution, especially with regard to executive dominance. Second, the litigation over the governor-general’s dissolution of Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly (1947–1954) illuminates the perils of New Dominion constitutionalism and the attempts by Pakistani constitution-makers in both Constituent Assemblies to frame a constitution departing from the Westminster model and to enshrine in the document checks and balances of a legal nature.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article published in 'International Journal of Constitutional Law', following peer review. The version of record Malagodi, M. (2018). Dominion Status and the Origins of Authoritarian Constitutionalism in Pakistan. International Journal of Constitutional Law is available online at:doi.org/10.1093/icon/moz080.
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia K Law > K Law (General)
Departments:	The City Law School > Academic Programmes
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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