“Balancing Tradition and Modernization in Law making: A Comparative Study of Pakistan and Tunisia”

Abstract

This research investigates how Tunisia and Pakistan contend with the need for balance between modernity and tradition in their respective law-making processes. How do the two states maintain an Islamic identity while attending to the modern imperatives of governance, democracy, and the protection of human rights? To answer the question, the paper analyses constitutions, statutory reforms, secondary literature and compares Pakistan’s dual legal system here principles of Shariah and parliamentary democracy coexist against Tunisia’s more progressive secular-civil system and the Islamic values espoused in the Tunisian constitution. Pakistan’s legal institutions such as the Federal Shariat Court and the Council of Islamic Ideology, and the secular post-2011 Tunisian constitutional bodies, are discussed as exemplifying and institutionalising the principles of pluralism and equality self-imbued in the analysands of the research. Specifically, faith and modernity as conceptual and legal constructs are dynamic, and such in the research context, are defined through the lens of colonial history, political leadership, and societal constructs.   The success of any legal reform depends on how far and in what manner such reforms achieve and align with the unchanging international principles of governance, rights, and maqāṣid al-sharīʿah (objectives of Islamic law) justice, welfare, and human dignity.