International Law

Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony The Politics of the Legal Complex

Edited by Terence C. Halliday · Lucien Karpik · Malcolm M. Feeley
Cambridge University Press May 2012

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781107012783
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication
May 2012
Format
Hardback , 570 pages
Jurisdiction
International ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

What explains divergences in political liberalism among new nations that shared the same colonial heritage? This book assembles exciting original essays on former colonies of the British Empire in South Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia that gained independence after World War II. The interdisciplinary country specialists reveal how inherent contradictions within British colonial rule were resolved after independence in contrasting liberal-legal, despotic and volatile political orders. Through studies of the longue durée and particular events, this book presents a theory of political liberalism in the post-colony and develops rich hypotheses on the conditions under which the legal complex, civil society and the state shape alternative postcolonial trajectories around political freedom. This provocative volume presents new perspectives for scholars and students of postcolonialism, political development and the politics of the legal complex, as well as for policy makers and publics who struggle to construct and defend basic legal freedoms.

• Presents a new empirically-based theory that explains why some countries protect basic legal freedoms after independence and others do not

• Shows how new nations resolve contradictions of colonialism in three different ways - liberal-legal, despotic, volatile

• Reveals the importance of the legal complex (lawyers, judges, and so on) for the fates of basic legal and political rights in a country

Table of Contents

List of Contributors
ix
Acknowledgments
xiii
Introduction
1
Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony: A Theme with Three Variations
Terence C. Halliday and Lucien Karpik
3
PART I    Liberal-Legal Orders
57
1         Emasculating the Executive: The Federal Court and Civil Liberties in Late Colonial India: 1942–1944
Rohit De
59
2         The Legal Complex in the Struggle to Control Police Brutality in India
Charles R. Epp
91
3         Priests in the Temple of Justice: The Indian Legal Complex and the Basic Structure Doctrine
Manoj Mate
112
PART II   Despotic Orders
147
4         Lawyers, Politics, and Publics: State Management of Lawyers and Legitimacy in Singapore
Jothie Rajah
149
5         Lawyers and the Disintegration of the Legal Complex in Sudan
Mark Fathi Massoud
193
6         The Sri Lankan Legal Complex and the Liberal Project: Only Thus Far and No More
Deepika Udagama
219
Part III  Volatile Orders
245
7         “Custodian of Civil Liberties and Justice in Malaysia”: The Malaysian Bar and the Moderate State
Andrew Harding and Amanda Whiting
247
8         Liberal Protagonists? The Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan
Sadaf Aziz
305
9         Miscarriage of Chief Justice: Judicial Power and the Legal Complex in Pakistan under Musharraf
Shoaib A. Ghias
340
10        From Judicial Autonomy to Regime Transformation: The Role of the Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan
Daud Munir
378
11        Postcolonial Liberalism and the Legal Complex in Zambia: Elegy or Triumph?
Jeremy Gould
412
12        Legal Complexes and the Fight for Political Liberalism in New African Democracies: Comparative Insights from Malawi, Zambia, and Namibia
Peter VonDoepp
455
Postscript
491
13        Judge and Company: Courts, Constitutionalism, and the Legal Complex
Malcolm M. Feeley
493
Index
523

About the Author

Terence C. Halliday
American Bar Association, Illinois

Lucien Karpik
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Malcolm M. Feeley
University of California, Berkeley

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