Salman Akram Raja

Salman Akram Raja

The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan

  • Sense and nonsense

    Despite the refreshingly clear judgment of the Lahore High Court directing the Election Commission of Pakistan to hold elections for the Punjab...

  • Another constitutional farce?

    If those who claim direct access to the powers that be are to be believed, the country is set for another bout of ‘wise men’ deciding that the...

  • Dissolving a political party

    The dissolution of the National Awami Party in 1975 followed months of degradation of the party and its leadership in the mass media. This was a...

  • Gaming the constitution

    Gaming the constitution

    When all sides are intent on gaming the law for political gain, the ambition to be objective – one hesitates to use the word neutral – is a...

  • A matter of interpretation

    “Members of the Supreme Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law ... it is not the Court's job to protect the people from the...

  • Undoing a constitutional fraud

    The April 7 order of the Supreme Court, quashing the deputy speaker’s ruling of April 3 and, as a consequence, the prime minister’s advice and...

  • A judicial legacy

    Every chief justice of Pakistan has the opportunity to choose issues for engagement that will define the tenor of the Supreme Court with him as the...

  • Taking rights seriously?

    Those who wield power in the Islamic Republic do not expect to be confronted with resistance, disclosure, or critique in full view of the populace....

  • Going all wrong - Part II

    The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.In the decade or so after school as I negotiated various economics and law degrees at...

  • Going all wrong (Part - I)

    Coming at the heels of the Minar-e-Pakistan ‘incident’, the prime minister’s recent lament that English medium schools are creating a class of...

  • Credibility and judicial appointments

    In his article in these pages , ‘Seniority v merit: a false binary’ , friend and elegant thinker about law and life, Salahuddin Ahmed who is...

  • Seniority and judicial appointments

    The reservations expressed by the Sindh High Court Bar Association and, later, by the Supreme Court Bar Association about the intended elevation of...

  • E-voting: fools rush in

    In a rousing, if dramatic, moment in the justly celebrated documentary ‘The Ascent of Man’, the mathematician and historian – and all else in...

  • Palestine: peace and its discontents

    An unjust lull has set in after eleven days of Israeli barbarity that saw the use of disproportionate murderous force against a Palestinian...

  • Maulana Wahiduddin: rethinking jihad

    Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s death in New Delhi last month at the age of 96 has resulted in a spate of commemorative articles in the Pakistani press....

  • Justice Faez Isa: fighting the fog

    The short order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan – of April 26, 2021 – rendered by a majority of six with four honourable judges dissenting, in...

  • A decent life

    For some years now I A Rehman Sahib, who passed away gracefully and in harness at age ninety last week, would let out a wry lament, ‘Fighting...

  • Fraud as legality

    By July 2007, General Musharraf had started feeling nervous. He felt he needed to reach out and build a good opinion of himself among those with a...

  • Confronting the system

    Judiciaries around the world are often seen as going through phases. Only occasionally are courts the site of resistance against the hegemonic...