Editorial
Article 184(3) of Pakistan’s Constitution is often treated as a gateway to broad judicial authority, yet its actual scope is far more limited. A careful reading of the Constitution makes one point clear: this provision exists solely for the enforcement of fundamental rights, not for reviewing or striking down legislation passed by Parliament.
Fundamental rights are violated through the actions or failures of the state’s executive machinery. Arrests, detentions, censorship, discrimination, taxation, and regulation are all carried out by the executive. When courts step in under Article 184(3) or Article 199, they do so to direct the executive to act within constitutional limits. Enforcement, by definition, addresses how the law is applied, not how it is made.
The legislature plays an entirely different role. It does not enforce laws; it creates them. Implementation lies with the executive, while interpretation belongs to the judiciary. A jurisdiction that is expressly confined to enforcement cannot logically be expanded to include legislative review. Article 184(3) contains no language that authorises courts to second-guess legislative wisdom or invalidate statutes on the basis of judicial preference.
This understanding is reinforced by Article 199, which grants High Courts original jurisdiction for rights enforcement. The constitutional design points towards judicial federalism, where courts protect rights against executive excess, not judicial supremacy over elected institutions.
While Articles 8 and 227 place substantive limits on Parliament, they do not explicitly empower courts to act as supervisors of legislation. Constitutional silence cannot be transformed into judicial authority. In Pakistan’s constitutional scheme, judicial review exists to restrain executive power, not to govern the legislature.
Stretching Article 184(3) into a tool of legislative review blurs the separation of powers. The Constitution recognises rights enforcement, not judicial governance of lawmaking. Legislative review, as currently practised, is not a constitutional grant but a judicial assumption.
