How are Law and Politics interconnected?
s hunter-gatherers begin to formalize in order to hunt together, for that single purpose aroused many ideas, as every human values what he thinks or what he wishes. The moment his thought process acknowledges that his perspective should be implemented, this is the standpoint where politics begin. Finding a middle ground or ensuring that no one is neither happy nor sad, attaining everyone’s satisfaction is politics. Politics in simple words is the tussle for power, the process to gain power, and is the fundamental principle to remain in power. In theoretical words, politics is termed as activities related to the governance and management of administrative, social, and economic affairs of a polity or state. Politics is not bound to a single meaning and does not aim at one specific purpose. According to many political thinkers, politics is a vast and complex field of study. The concept of politics is as old as mankind. Adding to the argument that politics revolves around governing or imposing one’s own idea or belief which is in fact a part of human nature.
Law, on the other hand, is a set of some codified and un-codified principles or rules which instruct how a city, community, state, or organization should be governed. The concept of law entails how disputes will be resolved, who will decide, and on what merits decisions will be made. According to Thomas Hobbes’s social contract theory, the law is a mutually understood and proposed policy in a form of an agreement between people and the sovereign, which in democratic countries is the state. However, in autocratic societies, the ruler is believed to be sovereign as a French king Louis 14 (1638-1715) stated: “L’etat, c’est moi”: I am the state.
To put it simply, the law is a contract between the state and its citizen in which people cede their sovereignty to the state for their security and welfare. Some political scientists suggest that the social contract is the agreement between people living in a polity that entails how they are going to interact together, formulate relations and solve disputes, relating these words with the situation of the hunter-gatherers, formalizing to hunt together they believed that there should be some ascertained values, rules and regulations in accordance to which they may structure their lives.
Law and politics both are immensely interconnected with each other as politics is the governance and management of a state whereas, the law is a procedure that determines how that state or a collection of states would be governed.
Politics is a necessity for law making and its implementation. This thought provokes how are laws made. As per Jean Jacques Rousseau, sovereignty lies with the general will expressed by the people, hence the law is a product of collective, general, and sovereign will expressed by the people living in a state. Politics and law both are interdependent disciplines. In democratic societies, laws are made by the people who are elected from respective constituencies across the state. People foster their confidence in their elected representatives so that they may present their ideas, mandates, and ideologies at the national level. The laws are made in accordance with the will of the people and it is suggested in democratic societies that the will of the people prevails over everything.
In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, laws are enacted through a parliamentary process that requires a 2/3 majority of members of the national assembly to pass a bill into law. It is claimed that politics do affect the law through the means of law-making. In parliament, some bills may not be able to gain a 2/3 majority for legislation, hence the democratic principle of unanimity must be preserved. The ruling party is required to consult with others parties in order to pass legislation. Considering the current cabinet of the ruling party, it consists of 18 special assistants, 4 advisors, 4 state ministers, and 28 federal ministers. Although having representation from all provinces is beneficial to democracy, it also demonstrates that the government is bound by politics while making laws.
Moreover, a bounded government is often termed good because it hinders elective dictatorship, respects the rule of law as parliamentary sovereignty, and is believed by political thinkers as being inherently capable of undermining rule of law. The tussle between rule of law and parliamentary sovereignty is an inevitable aspect of the legal and political system of a state. Parliamentary sovereignty argues that parliament is sovereign it can make or amend any law whether retrospective or not and can legislate ultra vires to its authority or jurisdiction, whereas, the rule of law suggests no retrospective laws should be made, there should be equal accountability and fundamental rights should be protected. There are possibilities that parliament may pass a retrospective law or laws that may be a violation of human rights. Politics swoops in between as an opposition before the judiciary to stop the parliament from doing so. The opposition parties presented in parliament are the first form of informal check on the government actions, however, the government does have to account for its actions in parliament as it’s a part of the democratic process but the government may not amend or revise any law proposed by the opposition.
After the informal checks, the formal checking mechanism that checks on the actions of the executive primarily the parliament is the judiciary. The judiciary ensures that any act of parliament will not go against the constitution. In 2019, the Army Chief was given a tenure extension by the Prime Minister however, judiciary intervened as it deemed that the extension did not fall under the scope of referenced law so the judiciary provided the government with an ultimatum of 6 months to legislate those laws properly. In this respect, an amendment took place in the Army Act ,1952 that is regarded as Army Act 2020. It appeared that for that legislation some political motives did surface as the amendment was supported by all major political parties, at the same time, was also denounced by some.
Law is used for political purposes at times in politics and comes in between legislative motives. Under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of Pakistan, the Prime Minister should be truthful and trustworthy, these are the Islamic provisions of the constitution, they were supposedly introduced by a dictator but during the drafting of 18TH Amendment, the government at the time wished for its removal. This was opposed by the sitting opposition of that time and in the end that particular law caused the removal and disqualification of a prime minister. That particular law has created political chaos in the state but that decision did uphold the Rule of Law.
There are moments where the rule of law wins and sometimes it is the politics that stand successful. Article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution was revoked as it provided the President with an arbitrary power to dismiss the elected government. The provision was revoked by the 18th amendment of the Constitution. This could be regarded as a political win, as politics did thrive and assembles became more secure to complete their tenure.
Law always needs political support to prevail. Similarly, political actions correspondingly need laws to be legitimate in authority. Politics is considered more flexible whereas the law is seen to be rigid because politics varies from person to person, ideology to ideology. However, the law is firm and same for everyone. It is important to note that both disciplines are different from each other, since change is easy in politics, but the law is the product of a sovereign and so it will always be very challenging to change. Neither politics nor law can prevail over politics. However, there are junctions where one is to be upheld and the other is destined to be undermined in order to keep society evolving.
The writer is a second-year law student at ZFL.
Twitter: @jamali_aizaz999
Published in ZU-BLAWGS, September 2nd, 2021