The legal legacy of Dominion status in Pakistan (1947–1956) explains the rise, configuration, and normalization of authoritarian constitutionalism in the country. Mara Malagodi analyzes Pakistan’s Dominion constitution as both the constitutional framework to manage a difficult political transition and the juridical basis to frame the country’s new permanent constitution. It is argued that the adoption of an instrumental procedural approach to Westminster constitutionalism in Pakistan during the Dominion period led to the subversion of its substantive underpinnings from within.
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