Pakistan Blasphemy Laws are once again under the national and international spotlight following the gruesome murder of Advocate Rashid Rehman, a lawyer and a human rights activist who was shot dead on May 7, 2014 in his office for defending a teacher of Bahauddin Zakaria University, in Multan, central Pakistan. The teacher was accused of having committed blasphemy. Following on the the heel of this murderous act, as many as 68 lawyers also faced the same charge under Section 295A of the constitution of Pakistan by the Kotwali Police in Jhang, another town in central Pakistan which is the hotbed of the country simmering sectarian wars. The infamous radical sunni Lashkar-i- Jhangvi and its precursor Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan also originated in Jhang. It is no surprise therefore that the Jhang police wasted no time in instituting the case against the lawyers who were protesting Rehman murder. The case followed a death threat made by religious groups, who warned lawyers of dire consequences if they stood for blasphemy offenders. Ignoring the threat, a group of lawyers did organize a protest against the wilful murder of Rashid Rehman who was only performing his duty as a defender of law and justice. In retaliation to the widespread condemnation by the lawyers and the civil society organization, on the murder of Mr Rehman, the perpetrators planned another deadly act of attacking the Central Jail Multan and killing all the accused in blasphemy case including lecturer Junaid Hafeez, who was accused of defaming the Holy Prophet on social media. [1] Preempting the attack, Multan police on a tip-off, arrested five alleged terrorists on May 11. Just a week before the murder of Mr Rehman, a mosque in the Capital Islamabad was named after Mumtaz Qadri, the guard who had murdered former Governor of Punjab Mr Salman Taseer [2] in Islamabad on January 4, 2011. Qadri gunned down Taseer because the former governor advocated changes to the Blasphemy Law and had also met with Asiya Bibi...

An international conference at Oxford University on May 10 looked at the possible opportunities that may arise out of the multiple crises that Pakistan currently faces. During proceedings and presentations, the 27 speakers ¶ including those from Pakistan, the US, Germany, Canada and the UK ¶ dilated on the security, economy, sociology and foreign relations of Pakistan. Much of the talk centred around the crisis of governance, insecurity, energy issues, ethnic and nationalistic conflicts and Pakistan policy discord with India, the US and its skewed policy towards Afghanistan. Ironically, even relatively optimistic speakers predicated their projections on several ¿ifs– and ¿buts–. Convened by the Quaid-e-Azam fellow at St Anthony College, Oxford University, Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, the conference drew prominent intellectuals from all places mentioned above, aiming to generate interest to re-engage Pakistan challenges at the intellectual, academic and policy level. Pakistandisparate education system and the sociopolitical distortionsit has brought about also featured prominently in the discussions, with Mosharraf Zaidi and Professor Saeed Shafqat underlining that the near abdication of quality and values– education by the state had stymied public sector educational institutions– progress. The mantra of private schools being the panacea for the education sector ills must be dispensed with, Zaidi said, underlining the need to regularise all private schools and introducing a unified and harmonious curriculum, at least on religion, history and language. One of the formidable challenges for Pakistan, as speakers pointed out, is thechange of guardsin the capitals of Pakistan eastern and western neighbours. They cautioned that with the possible elevation of Narendra Modi as the Indian premier and with a new president in Afghanistan, the Pakistani civilian and military leadership needed to review its existing prism on both countries and come up with a pre-emptive, bold and...

An international conference at Oxford University on May 10 looked at the possible opportunities that may arise out of the multiple crises that Pakistan currently faces. During proceedings and presentations, the 27 speakers ¶ including those from Pakistan, the US, Germany, Canada and the UK ¶ dilated on the security, economy, sociology and foreign relations of Pakistan. Much of the talk centred around the crisis of governance, insecurity, energy issues, ethnic and nationalistic conflicts and Pakistan policy discord with India, the US and its skewed policy towards Afghanistan. Ironically, even relatively optimistic speakers predicated their projections on several ¿ifs– and ¿buts–. Convened by the Quaid-e-Azam fellow at St Anthony College, Oxford University, Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, the conference drew prominent intellectuals from all places mentioned above, aiming to generate interest to re-engage Pakistan challenges at the intellectual, academic and policy level. Pakistandisparate education system and the sociopolitical distortionsit has brought about also featured prominently in the discussions, with Mosharraf Zaidi and Professor Saeed Shafqat underlining that the near abdication of quality and values– education by the state had stymied public sector educational institutions– progress. The mantra of private schools being the panacea for the education sector ills must be dispensed with, Zaidi said, underlining the need to regularise all private schools and introducing a unified and harmonious curriculum, at least on religion, history and language. One of the formidable challenges for Pakistan, as speakers pointed out, is thechange of guardsin the capitals of Pakistan eastern and western neighbours. They cautioned that with the possible elevation of Narendra Modi as the Indian premier and with a new president in Afghanistan, the Pakistani civilian and military leadership needed to review its existing prism on both countries and come up with a pre-emptive, bold and...

An international conference at Oxford University on May 10 looked at the possible opportunities that may arise out of the multiple crises that Pakistan currently faces. During proceedings and presentations, the 27 speakers ¶ including those from Pakistan, the US, Germany, Canada and the UK ¶ dilated on the security, economy, sociology and foreign relations of Pakistan. Much of the talk centred around the crisis of governance, insecurity, energy issues, ethnic and nationalistic conflicts and Pakistan policy discord with India, the US and its skewed policy towards Afghanistan. Ironically, even relatively optimistic speakers predicated their projections on several ¿ifs– and ¿buts–. Convened by the Quaid-e-Azam fellow at St Anthony College, Oxford University, Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, the conference drew prominent intellectuals from all places mentioned above, aiming to generate interest to re-engage Pakistan challenges at the intellectual, academic and policy level. Pakistandisparate education system and the sociopolitical distortionsit has brought about also featured prominently in the discussions, with Mosharraf Zaidi and Professor Saeed Shafqat underlining that the near abdication of quality and values– education by the state had stymied public sector educational institutions– progress. The mantra of private schools being the panacea for the education sector ills must be dispensed with, Zaidi said, underlining the need to regularise all private schools and introducing a unified and harmonious curriculum, at least on religion, history and language. One of the formidable challenges for Pakistan, as speakers pointed out, is thechange of guardsin the capitals of Pakistan eastern and western neighbours. They cautioned that with the possible elevation of Narendra Modi as the Indian premier and with a new president in Afghanistan, the Pakistani civilian and military leadership needed to review its existing prism on both countries and come up with a pre-emptive, bold and...

Below is the summary of a paper that Mr. Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director CRSS presented at the International Conference 'Pakistan: Opportunity in Crisis' on "Executive, Judiciary, Parliament and the Military:Rebalancing of Powers in Pakistan" held at Asian Studies Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford University from 10-11 May, 2014. Introduction: March 9, 2007 was a defining moment for Pakistan: Regardless of CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry's motives, his defiance of General Pervez Musharraf, the Supreme Commander and his close associates at the virtual Army House in Rawalpindi south of Islamabad, turned out to be a watershed in the senior judiciary's role in Pakistan. What we have seen since is the emergence of the senior judiciary as an ever-assertive and at times unnecessarily interventionist state institution which has been challenging both the military and the civilian leadership - albeit with limitations. Judiciary Use of Doctrine of Necessity vis-à-vis the Military, Parliament & Executive A look back at the 67 years of political history of Pakistan shows five extra-constitutional emergency or martial law regimes where the constitution was either entirely abrogated or partly or wholly suspended. Martial laws were declared in Pakistan in 1958, (by Iskandar Mirza who appointed General Ayub Khan as the Chief Martial Law Administrator), 1969 (by General Yahya Khan himself), 1977 (by General Zia-ul-Haq) and in 1999 and 2007 (by General Pervez Musharraf). All first four Martial Laws in Pakistan were legitimized by the Supreme Court of Pakistan using the ¿Doctrine of Necessity– which was introduced by Chief Justice Muhammad Munir in Supreme Court of Pakistan jurisdiction in the mid-1950s. He drew support for the ¿law of necessity– from Braxton maxim which stated, 'That which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity', and the Roman dictum, 'the well-being of the people is the supreme law.' In all of the above martial laws, it was always the when there was...