8 - Corporatist Governance

Summary

Chapter 8 identifies the key features of the 'proactivism' of the Chaudhry Court. A fluid and somewhat awkward balance of power appeared to have been reached wherein the military was dominant in some spheres but lacked the capacity to dictate its will wholesale to the other institutional complexes.It also appeared that the political elites and the judiciary had learned from the military’s historical success in safeguarding its institutional interests and were similarly acting coherently and strategically in the furtherance of their respective concerns. The resulting form of ‘corporatist’ governance gave the political system the kind of dynamic equilibrium that it had historically lacked. Given this fragmentation of institutional power, a resurrected Chaudhry Court found the space to engineer the second significant wave of the judicialisation of politics and governance in Pakistan. The judicial review practices entrenched by the court were largely predicated on the three historical strands of legality: namely, formal constitutionalism, administrative law and the review of police powers. The lasting legacy of the Chaudhry Court is a superior judiciary with a seemingly permanent place as a co-equal player in the state structure.