KARACHI: A study in the constitution of Pakistan, including the frequent changes in it, titled: ‘The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973 with Manual Election Laws,’ by Zain Sheikh was launched on Saturday.

The writer is a professor at the SM Law College, Karachi, who started his legal career in 1990.

Mr Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed was the chief guest on the occasion. Lauding the book as a “commendable exercise”, he said it reflected as to how “the constitution has been changing its face over the years”.

The proceedings were attended by retired judges of the higher judiciary and eminent members of the bar. Included among the speakers were justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, Justice Saleem Akhtar and Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid.

The author in a brief introduction said that apart from amendments to all the previous constitutions of Pakistan, he had added detailed footnotes with references to important cases and also included repealed portions of the constitution.

Justice Fakhruddin lamented as to how a one man’s constitution had replaced the constitution passed in an elected parliament.

He was critical of the Supreme Court’s verdict which enabled the General “with wider authorization to amend the constitution to serve his purpose”. He also criticised the three- year extension in the service tenure of the judges which was done with “a purpose”. The cases on the presidential amendments would go to these courts, and the judges, he observed, were expected to favourably deal with the cases.

Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid presented two alternatives to undo the presidential amendments to the constitution: one is to go to the Supreme Court and seek its verdict to revive the original constitution and the other is a decision to be taken by the parliament in favour of the 1973 Constitution.

Justice Zahid admired the young writer and hoped that younger people would come on the fore and would change the present “culture of loot and pilferage”.

Justice Salim Akhtar praised the book as an “excellent for ready reference and quite different in rendition and compilation from other books on the subject.”

The speakers praised the publisher, Danial Noorani, for publishing a book not only useful for the bench and the bar but also for the researchers in the legal history of the country.

Hamid Maker of the Helpline Trust did the compering.