Islamization of Laws in Our Country

Lets discuss about Islamization of laws in our country and about "hadood laws" commonly heard as "hadood ordinance".

 Z.A.BHUTTO RULE:

                If we go in the history of Pakistan,The Objectives Resolution of 1949, adopted as the original preamble to the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan (and later incorporated as a substantive provision, Art. 2-A, during the Zia era) made explicit reference to the “principles of democracy, freedom,equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam” as a foundational principle 9 of the constitution.

 The 1956 Constitution of Pakistan provided a specific mechanism for the "Islamization" of laws.The powers of bringing the laws of the land into conformity with Islamic law were granted to the Parliament and an advisory body was created to provide suitable suggestions. The Constitution of 1973 preserved this approach to Islamisation. The project of Islamisation of laws did not gather impetus until the later half of the 1970‟s, when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, under pressure from an opposition alliance that included the religious political parties, announced measures such as prohibition on the consumption of alcohol and declaration of Ahmadis to be non-Muslims.

This was the great achievement done by Z.A.BHUTTO, because there was a lot of confusion in people of pakistan at that time,with this law,the ahmadis and qadianis were declared non muslim.Then,muslims of Pakistan realized that if they had any relation with them it would no longer exits.

GENERAL ZIA RULE:

                  With the advent of General Zia ul Haq on the political scene, the landscape changed dramatically and the enforcement of Shari’a became the source  of a military regime desperately in need of legitimacy and some level of popular support. Zia‟s Islamisation is most closely associated with the Hudood  laws. These are five presidential ordinances that introduced new sexual and property offenses, maintained the prohibition on the consumption of alcohol, and provided for exemplary Islamic punishments such as stoning to death (for adultery), whipping and amputation (for fornication and theft).

          These laws caused immense controversy and were criticized for being  discriminatory towards religious minorities. The real impetus for Islamisation came not through the above-mentioned legislative interventions but through the Islamic courts, which were created by an amendment to the constitution in exercise of the emergency powers. The Shariat Courts, including the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) and the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court (SAB), both of which are appellate courts, were empowered to review any law for conformity with “the injunctions of Islam”and declare any offending law, including parliamentary legislation, to be null and void. In reality, the court could exercise these powers in such a manner as to dictate to the legislature what Islamic law provisions would replace the voided legal provisions.

       Indeed  Zia’s approach was good to implement basic Islamic laws in Pakistan.But his approach at that time was not correct because if we want to implement any law on a society it will take time ,tou don’t put at once ,If Zia gradually approaches toward these laws with time,then I m sure it would be soon implemented in Pakistan .But unfortunately after Zia’s no one took care of it.

The major decisions of the Shariat courts were delivered in the period immediately following Zia‟s demise and coincided with the first tenures of Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in the late 1980‟s and early 1990‟s. The late 1990‟s have been an era of emerging Islamic critiques that have pointed out not only the human rights violations resulting from these laws but also focus on their divergences from classical Islamic law in several respects. The Musharraf regime has sought to amend many of these Islamized laws, which have become increasingly notorious internationally. While in the West the Islamisation of the laws of Pakistan is generally perceived to be a retrogressive movement characterized by the introduction of discriminatory.

With the Islamisation of laws a new discourse has begun to take shape questioning the legitimacy and moral authority of laws that govern citizens‟ conduct. This dimension is also beginning to be reflected in the jurisprudence of the superior courts, other than the Shariat courts, where references to Islamic principles are frequently made in justification of rulings concerning subjects as diverse as due process in administrative law, enforceability of contracts and environmental regulation, to refer to a few examples. This shifting discourse on the Islamisation of the law forms, along with 10   the constitutional crises and frequent shifts in the locus of authority, provides the backdrop for the current state of the rule of law in Pakistan.