Asad Rahim Khan

Last updated
Asad Rahim Khan
Born1990 (age 33–34)
Lahore, Pakistan
Nationality Flag of Pakistan.svg Pakistani
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Barrister
  • writer
Academic work
Discipline Constitutional law
Institutions Lahore University of Management Sciences

Asad Rahim Khan (born 1990) is a Pakistani barrister, constitutional lawyer and writer. [1] [2] [3] He was involved in drafting the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, merging the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He teaches constitutional law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, and writes columns for Dawn.

Contents

Early life

Rahim was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He graduated from the London School of Economics with a Bachelor of Laws in 2012, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn.

Career

Rahim served as law clerk to Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah at the Lahore High Court, before joining the Office of the Attorney-General in 2016. He was part of the federation's legal team before the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers and lifetime electoral disqualification cases. [4] In 2018, he advocated that the attorney-general's office oppose the judgment of the Sindh High Court acquitting Shahrukh Jatoi in the Shahzeb Khan murder case, in a petition moved before the Supreme Court by social activist Jibran Nasir. [5]

Rahim returned to private practice in 2019 as a partner at Ashtar Ali LLP. He was appointed to the prime minister's working group of experts on international investment treaty reforms in 2020. [6] He represented Punjab's restored local government before the Lahore High Court, arguing for the completion of their full tenure in Punjab. [7]

Twenty-Fifth Amendment

Rahim was part of the Attorney-General's committee that drafted the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Supporting a full merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rahim wrote that such a merger would extend basic citizenship rights to millions of people for the first time since decolonization, and also abolish the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulations that allowed for collective punishment of tribespeople. He opposed more gradual measures short of merger, including the Rewaj Act. [8]

Military courts

Rahim opposed the creation of military courts for trying terrorists in 2015, and the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution. [3] In 2023, he opposed military courts for trying civilians, as part of the legal team petitioning the Supreme Court. [9] He termed the judgment outlawing military trials of civilians as “courageous and potentially expansive”. [10]

Views

Rahim was a weekly columnist for The Express Tribune from 2013 to 2016, before moving to Dawn in 2017. He was also cohost of current affairs programme Do Raaye on Dawn News alongside satirical commentator and columnist Fasi Zaka, which aired from 2016 to 2021. In 2020, Rahim turned down an invitation to right-wing Indian television anchor Arnab Goswami's show on Republic TV, replying, "If I wanted to hear a fascist lunatic scream for war for an hour, I would listen to Joseph Goebbels's old speeches". [11]

Jinnah

In a long essay published in Dawn on 14 August 2023, Pakistan's 75th independence anniversary, Rahim rebutted historian Ayesha Jalal's thesis that the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, did not seek Partition or a separate state, referring to Jinnah's speeches, statements, and private correspondence, as well as the papers of colonial officials. Indian politician Shashi Tharoor critiqued Rahim's argument that Jinnah was not at fault for seeking Partition, as the telling of "Pakistani liberals" that thought that Jinnah, who had once been hailed "as the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, was blameless." [12]

Minority rights

Rahim has linked freedom of religious expression and minority rights to Pakistan's founding ideals and the Lahore Resolution. He supports the preeminence of Article 20 in Pakistan's Constitution, and called Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani's landmark judgment on minority rights as "Pakistan's answer to Brown v. Board of Education ". He has been noted for opposition to sectarianism and targeted violence against the Hazara community. [13]

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References

  1. ↑ "Pakistan's top court is eager to take on any brief". The Economist. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  2. ↑ "Pakistan's Supreme Court orders Punjab election on May 14". Al Jazeera. 4 April 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  3. 1 2 Chaudhry, Shahzad. "Saving the turf: The controversy of the 21st Amendment". Express. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  4. ↑ "Full text of SC verdict in Panama". Daily Times. 29 July 2017. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  5. ↑ Malik, Hasnaat (20 June 2019). "Barrister Khan appointed AGP". The Express Tribune. Express Group. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  6. ↑ "Pakistan seeks to reform int'l investment regime". The Express Tribune. Express Group. 2 November 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  7. ↑ Hussnain, Fida (15 December 2021). "Secretary summoned over LG officials' term completion plea". Minute Mirror. Archived from the original on 2023-11-05. Retrieved 4 November 2023. The petitioners, Barrister Khan argued, could not represent the citizenry for 22 months and subsequent seven months and that they were denied the chance to fulfill the legitimate expectation of serving public interest.
  8. ↑ Khan, Asad Rahim (4 October 2017). "Brave new world". Dawn. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  9. ↑ Akhtar, Munib. "Detailed verdict in Jawwad S. Khawaja case" (PDF). Supreme Court of Pakistan. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  10. ↑ Dawn (23 October 2023). "Lawyers hail 'courageous' SC verdict on military trial of civilians" . Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  11. ↑ "Pakistani lawyer turns down Arnab Goswami's invitation". Janta Ka Reporter. 1 June 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  12. ↑ Tharoor, Shashi (17 December 2019). "Dear Amit Shah, stop distorting history to explain your failures today: Shashi Tharoor". The Print. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  13. ↑ Hassan, Komayal (23 April 2019). "(Not) 'All Pakistanis suffer equally'". In the wake of the recent heart-rending tragedy that befell the Hazaras of Hazarganji, a number of prominent media personalities such as Asad Rahim Khan, Pervez Hoodbhoy, and the relentless political activist Jibran Nasir, came out in vocal support of the highly persecuted minority ethnic group. These individuals, and the many others who have vented their frustration over this unchecked travesty through their field activism, newspaper articles, talk show interviews, or social media condemnations, need to be commended for calling a spade a spade in no uncertain terms.
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