In March 2009, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and several other
deposed judges were restored to the Supreme Court of Pakistan as a
result of a populist movement for the restoration of an independent
judiciary. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has since engaged in judicial
activism that has resulted in a clash between the judiciary and the
elected executive and has brought the distinction between the Rule of
Law and the judicialization of politics into contestation. This Paper
deconstructs the philosophical debates over the meaning and relevance
of the Rule of Law in order to show that the claims to universal
applicability, neutrality and inherent value implicit in the dominant
modes of theorizing about the Rule of Law are hollow. The deeper
concern animating these debates is not the desire to draw hard lines
between “law” and “politics.” However, abstract Rule of Law
contestations have limited value and relevance, when divorced from the
political, constitutional, and sociological context. Only a sharper
understanding of the nature of the special politics of law and the specific
contexts (of constitutional law, state structure, social, and economic lifeforms) shall enable a better understanding of the ever-increasing
resonance of the Rule of Law, especially in the Global South