Sultan Mehmood

Education and career

Mehmood did PhD studies in France. He has pursued academic work in the Netherlands and Pakistan. He is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the New Economic School in Moscow. [1]

His research focuses on the interplay between law, political economy and revolutions. Mehmood says he speaks often with lower-court judges and runs judge training programmes. He has written a paper showing that the 2010 institutional system has been hugely successful. [1]

Views on courts and the judiciary

Mehmood says constitutional courts are very important for protecting fundamental rights. He says economists see courts as enforcing contracts, which matters for investment. In his view, courts must keep innovating because the state reacts to each of their moves. [1]

Mehmood states a principle that an unshackled Leviathan grows stronger and eats citizens more and more. He says the military establishment in Pakistan is a Leviathan that is expanding its powers. He says courts have a duty to shackle the Leviathan actively, which protects courts, rights and democracy. [1]

Mehmood says the Indian three judges cases set out parameters for the roles of the executive and the judiciary. He says a 1996 case, in which the advice of the Chief Justice was held to be binding, began the rise of a powerful judiciary. By 2010, he says, a panel of judges was set up to select the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court, in the way India does. He also says that pro-government rulings fell and merit-based decisions rose over ten years. [1]

Mehmood says the judge selection system was imperfect but could be improved without giving the executive full control. He says the 26th Amendment reversed what had been working in the judiciary instead of fixing what was wrong. In his account, it has taken the country back to 1996 and has made the judiciary into a ministry inside government through an incentive structure. [1]

Mehmood says things would have come back without the 26th Amendment, because Pakistan's institutions had enough strength. He says the answer is to restore the pre-26th Amendment system rather than create a new one. He says lawyers and civil society need to push to reverse the amendment. [1]

Mehmood says lawyers and judges together are needed, because organised lawyer networks enforce court decisions. He says a lawyer hitting a policeman is a fair trade-off for the lawyers who protected democracy. [1]

Views on revolutions

Mehmood says revolutions are engineered by the elite. He says revolution and political activity require a certain level of human capital. He points to Quarterly Journal of Economics literature that documents how the French Encyclopedia affected people who became revolutionaries. [1]

He says revolutionaries are usually not peasants or farmers. He says about 2% of a population of 250 million would be enough to drive a revolution. Mehmood also cites Napoleon coming to power after the French Revolution as a risk of wanting to reimagine a state entirely. [1]

Views on Pakistan's politics

Mehmood says he is Punjabi but does not believe Punjabis are inherently martial. He says the British devised the martial race theory, which he calls completely flawed. He says recruitment of the military elite comes from Punjab and the Potohar region. [1]

Mehmood says the basis of Pakistan was a kind of semi-democracy with an always-present democratic element. He says every military dictator in Pakistan also had his undoing. He says Pakistan's system is much better than what Bangladesh's system had become. [1]

Mehmood says the conflict is moving closer to the centre instead of staying in the periphery, and that the grievances in the peripheries must be addressed. He says that in a nuclear-armed country things can go really wrong, which he calls the main danger. [1]

Mehmood expects a reconfiguration of the state rather than a reconstruction. He expects a new social contract that will be imperfect but more stable than the present one. He says he is hopeful that something positive and non-violent will come out of this. [1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. If you don't shackle the Leviathan, it eats you up . Thought Behind Things , 2025-01-09.