No more rollbacks.

Byline: Shahab Usto

HISTORICALLY, constitutional evolution has followed momentous if not cataclysmic events in a nation's history, be it the first proto-Muslim state's Misaq-i-Madina, a resurgent feudal England's Magna Carta, a post-revolutionary England's Declaration of Rights, a newly created United States of America's Bill of Rights or revolutionary France's Declaration of the Rights of Man.

The journey of human civilisation has seen many revolutions, regicides and fratricides, and philosophical, scientific, artistic and intellectual movements, eventually bring about some sort of a legal order - one that may be just, clear and certain, beyond the will of an individual no matter how powerful or resourceful, rooted in a social contract or constitution, by which the mutual rights and obligations of the state and citizens may be specified.

When it comes to the rule of law as an institution, our history is perhaps not as romantic or heroic, yet we have suffered no less in our constitutional journey. Over seven decades, the country has witnessed many an occasion when its constitutional march was halted, hindered and even driven back by the military dictators, using an unfortunate mix of muscular power and judicial legitimacy. Yet, thanks to the generational struggle waged by its freedom- and justice-loving people - political workers, lawyers, journalists, students, academics, labourers, poets, writers, artists and so on - Pakistan has seen its constitutional dispensation being restored over and over again; ultimately reaching a point where, if allowed space and time, it may finally deliver on the promises extended in its social contract.

Perhaps the government sees the present crisis as conducive to constitutional meddling.

This doesn't mean we have settled the primordial question of whether the constitutional dispensation has attained enough strength to hold itself true to its substance versus an array of powerful countervailing forces including dictators and demagogues. Today, not only is this longstanding question still unanswered, it has been resurrected by the incumbent PTI government, which has shown its 'resolve' to 'revisit' - if not to undo - the 18th Amendment. Enacted through parliamentary consensus in 2010, the intent behind this constitutional amendment lay in 'restoring' the spirit of federalism. It is mind-boggling, then, that the federal government has chosen to reignite a divisive constitutional issue, particularly at a time...