Madhav Khosla, “The Authoritarian Argument.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 36, no. 3 (2025): 47-62. Summary: The article rethinks the role of courts and judge in the autocratization process based on the case of Pakistan. It argues that attention should be shifted away from autocratization through law to law justifying autocratization. Rather than limiting the role …
This article explores how the lawyers’ movement in Pakistan serves as a critical force for restoring the rule of law and reinforcing judicial independence in a context of democratic backsliding.
The article examines how Pakistan’s grassroots lawyers’ movement leveraged nonviolent resistance and mass mobilization to restore judicial independence, highlighting civil society’s potential to drive democratic change under authoritarian rule.
The article highlights how Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s challenge to military dominance in Pakistan sparked a nationwide lawyers’ movement that ultimately restored judicial independence and reshaped the country’s constitutional landscape.
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.
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This article explores how Pakistan’s lawyer-led movement challenged dictatorship and reshaped judicial power and political engagement.
Lawyers play a crucial role in upholding judicial independence, as shown in Pakistan’s 2007 movement, where their collective action helped restore a removed chief justice and reinforced the judiciary’s power against executive overreach.