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Human rights, along with right to life as a most basic human right of all, were expressly protected in the Constitutions of India and Pakistan, when international human rights law was in its embryonic form. No doubt, the new jurisprudence of human rights placed their protection on a higher pedestal than other provisions of the Constitution, and was welcomed warmly. However, judicial activism was a sheer deviation from the spirit and norms of a constitutional democracy, theory of separation of powers, and the limited jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India, under the Indian Constitution. While in Pakistan, it has continuously been denied to review a constitutional amendment, taking away a fundamental right, on the ground that political questions were better to be solved on the forum of Parliament, instead of Judiciary. Nonetheless, with the passage of time, the horizons of right to life expanded, assimilating a number of other human rights, missing in the Constitutions of both Countries. They emerged as penumbra of right to life, owing to the active judicial role, creating most of third generation human rights.

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Dr. Aman Ullah is an Assistant Professor at University Law College, University of the Punjab (UoP), Lahore, Pakistan, and holds PhD in law from the London Metropolitan University, UK. He is a Solicitor of England and Wales as well. He graduated with LL.B. (Hons.) (Law and Sharia) from IIU, Islamabad in 1992 and LL.M from the UoP in 1999.

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