IF the government announces replacing the parliamentary system with a presidential one, would the reason suffice that many democracies in the world have presidential systems? And since parliamentary democracy in Pakistan has “failed”, it should be abolished?

Establishing a constitutional court to perform constitutional review by stripping the Supreme Court (SC) of this function is as fundamental a change for the judiciary. Yet, reasons for this change have so far been feeble and rhetorical, if not altogether absent.

Constitutional courts were first established in the beginning of the 20th century in Europe to “defeat the dogma of parliamentary supremacy”. Previously, parliamentary sovereignty was jealously guarded, and even the highest courts did not have constitutional review powers.

This gradually changed after World War I. As Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen wrote, “it is no longer possible to rely on the parliament itself to realise subordination to the constitution”, and the task of “nullifying its unconstitutional acts must be entrusted to a separate organ, independent of it and of any state authority”, ie, a constitutional court.

We don’t even have a draft for the ‘constitutional court’.

Gradually, a concentrated model of constitutional courts........

© Dawn