Wikipedia

Draft:Asad Rahim Khan

Asad Rahim Khan
Born1990 (age 35–36)
Lahore, Pakistan
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Barrister
  • writer
Known for
Academic work
DisciplineConstitutional law, history
InstitutionsLahore University of Management Sciences

Asad Rahim Khan (born 1990) is a Pakistani barrister, writer and historian.[1][2]

A constitutional lawyer,[3][4] Rahim challenged the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution before the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2025 for damaging judicial independence,[5][6] and was part of the legal team that petitioned against military trials of civilians.[7] He was also involved in drafting the Twenty-fifth Amendment, merging the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Rahim is an adjunct professor of constitutional law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, and a columnist for Dawn.

Early life

edit

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

edit
edit

Rahim served as law clerk to Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah at the Lahore High Court, before joining the office of the Attorney-General for Pakistan in 2016. He was part of the federation's legal team before the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers and lifetime electoral disqualification cases.[8] In 2018, he controversially advocated that the Attorney-General office oppose the judgment of the Sindh High Court acquitting Shahrukh Jatoi in the Shahzeb Khan murder case.[9]

Rahim returned to private practice at Ashtar Ali LLP, the firm of Ashtar Ausaf, in 2019 – now Ashtar Ali & Rahim LLP. He represented Punjab's restored local government before the Lahore High Court, arguing for the completion of their full tenure in Punjab.[10]

Twenty-fifth amendment and FATA merger

edit

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.[11]

Challenge to military trials of civilians

edit

Rahim opposed the creation of military courts for trying terrorists in 2015, and the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution.[12] In 2023, he again opposed military courts for trying civilians, as part of the legal team petitioning the Supreme Court.[7][13] In a landmark verdict on 23 October 2023, the Supreme Court struck down the trials. Rahim called the judgment “courageous and potentially expansive”.[14]

The verdict was reversed in May 2025, after the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution and the formation of an appellate bench. Rahim said, "It must be said that a chain of deliberate disasters destroying judicial independence had to happen for this: the Practice and Procedure Act, the Twenty-sixth Amendment, and now this Constitutional Bench." He also said, "There can be no military trials of civilians in our constitutional order. History delivered its verdict on 23 October 2023."[7]

Challenge to Twenty-seventh Amendment

edit

In November 2025, Rahim and lawyer Zeeshaan Hashmi filed a petition before the Supreme Court challenging the Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution a day before it was signed into law.[5] The amendment established a Federal Constitutional Court and removed the Supreme Court's jurisdiction under Article 184(3) to enforce fundamental rights. They contended that the amendment was unconstitutional, and that granting the executive power to appoint the new court's first chief justice and judges, and enabling the forced transfer of judges, amounted to executive capture of the judiciary.[5] They described it as the gravest encroachment on judicial independence "since the advent of the Government of India Act, 1935".[6]

The petitioners asked the court to strike down the impugned provisions and to suspend the amendment's implementation pending a final judgment.[6]

Views

edit

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".[15][16]

Jinnah

edit

In a long essay published in Dawn on August 14, 2022, 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."[17]

References

edit
  1. ↑ Aslam, Irfan. "Lawyers, legal experts at ThinkFest dissect 27th Amendment, highlight its issues". Dawn. Retrieved 10 July 2026.
  2. ↑ "PDM protesting to 'intimidate' Supreme Court: Barrister Asad Rahim". Dawn. 15 May 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  3. ↑ "Pakistan's Supreme Court orders Punjab election on May 14". Al Jazeera. 4 April 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  4. ↑ "Viral 'honor' killing in southwest Pakistan triggers national outrage". Arab News. Retrieved 10 July 2026.
  5. 1 2 3 "Newly-enacted 27th Constitutional Amendment challenged in Supreme Court". Dawn. Dawn Media Group. 13 November 2025. Retrieved 10 July 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 Malik, Hasnaat. "Lawyers Asad Rahim, Zeeshaan Hashmi, challenge 27th Amendment". The Express Tribune. Express Group. Retrieved 10 July 2026.
  7. 1 2 3 "SC greenlights military trials of civilians". The Express Tribune. 8 May 2025. Retrieved 10 July 2026.
  8. ↑ "Full text of SC verdict in Panama". Daily Times. 29 July 2017. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  9. ↑ Malik, Hasnaat (20 June 2019). "Barrister Khan appointed AGP". The Express Tribune. Express Group. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  10. ↑ Hussnain, Fida (15 December 2021). "Secretary summoned over LG officials' term completion plea". Minute Mirror. 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.
  11. ↑ Khan, Asad Rahim (4 October 2017). "Brave new world". Dawn. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  12. ↑ Chaudhry, Shahzad. "Saving the turf: The controversy of the 21st Amendment". Express. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  13. ↑ Akhtar, Munib. "Detailed verdict in Jawwad S. Khawaja case" (PDF). Supreme Court of Pakistan. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  14. ↑ Dawn (23 October 2023). "Lawyers hail 'courageous' SC verdict on military trial of civilians". Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  15. ↑ "Pakistani lawyer turns down Arnab Goswami's invitation". Janta Ka Reporter. 1 June 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  16. ↑ "Pakistan's top court is eager to take on any brief". The Economist. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  17. ↑ Tharoor, Shashi (17 December 2019). "Dear Amit Shah, stop distorting history to explain your failures today: Shashi Tharoor". The Print. Retrieved 5 November 2023.

See also

edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Asad_Rahim_Khan&oldid=1363651973"