The article argues that in Pakistan’s hybrid regime, lawyer-leaders and political parties, rather than courts alone, played a crucial role in judicial restoration, challenging traditional legal mobilization theories based on political liberalism.
China’s legal profession has rapidly privatized, leading to greater lawyer organization and social advocacy within the one-party state, despite ongoing government control.
Cause lawyers in Myanmar use legal formality to promote justice and public accountability, challenging state power, but persistent impunity undermines trust in the law’s effectiveness.
The article examines the dual and often conflicting roles of lawyers during revolutions, balancing their duty to uphold legal order with their responsibility to support revolutionary change and help shape new legal systems.
The essay situates China’s Human Rights Lawyers within authoritarian legality studies, revealing how rights lawyers navigate China’s courts to pursue social activism amid the state’s efforts to use law while maintaining political control.
The article explores how lawyers, though typically guardians of the legal order, played a pivotal and often paradoxical role in revolutionary movements by balancing their professional duties with commitments to political change.
The 2007 Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan marked a pivotal push for rule of law and democratic reform, as lawyers mobilized against authoritarian overreach and succeeded in restoring judicial independence.
The article argues that lawyers are essential to Africa’s democratic transitions, but must overcome past associations with authoritarian regimes to regain public trust and fulfill their reformative potential.
The legal professions in Tanzania and Kenya, despite operating under repressive state control, have played a crucial activist role in challenging authoritarianism—unlike their more individualistic counterparts in the West.
Despite increasing authoritarian control over the judiciary, Turkish activist lawyers such as the Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği strategically engage with the legal system as a form of grassroots resistance that challenges and redefines state-imposed legal boundaries.