SYED Sharifuddin Pirzada’s death in Karachi on Friday removes from the judicial scene one of Pakistan’s most eminent, though controversial, legal luminaries whose legal genius helped shape the country’s constitutional history in crucial moments.

While on the one hand he had the honour of being secretary to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a stickler for law and constitution, Pirzada lent his legal expertise to generals Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf to give a constitutional cover to their usurpation of power.

Politician, lawyer, statesman and author, Pirzada began his public career as secretary of Bombay Muslim League in 1945 and topped it as Pakistan’s attorney general and foreign minister in a public career that spanned seven decades.

Born in Burhanpur, India, on July 12, 1923, Pirzada obtained his law degree in Mumbai and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London. It was in Mumbai during the Pakistan movement as an activist with the Bombay Muslim Students’ Federation and Bombay Muslim League that he came close to the Quaid-i-Azam, whose secretary he was for a short time. After independence he took to teaching law at the Sindh Muslim Law College, Karachi, attracted the government’s attention for his brilliance and in 1968 was appointed Pakistan’s attorney general. He was to hold this office thrice, the last time in 1978.

During the Ayub regime, he was adviser to the Constitution Commission of Pakistan, chairman of the Pakistan Company Law Commission and foreign minister (1966-1968) when Z.A. Bhutto resigned. He led several government delegations to international law conferences, including the UN’s Law of the Sea conference in 1978-80, was elected to the International Law Commission, was chairman of the UN Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination against Minorities and drafted the historic UN General Assembly resolution on the status of Jerusalem in 1967.

Appointed his legal adviser by Gen Ziaul Haq, Pirzada was the man behind some of the most crucial legal and constitutional nostrums that Zia made use of to perpetuate his dictatorship using religion as a cover for more than a decade.

Even in the post-Zia period, Pirzada’s constitutional help was sought on what amounted to palace intrigues against democratic regimes. The governments of Benazir Bhutto (1990) and Nawaz Sharif (1993) fell victim to Article 58-2(b) which Zia had inserted into the constitution. This clause gave the head of state the power to dismiss an elected government and dissolve the assembly. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who became president after Zia’s death in a plane crash in August 1988, used this clause twice to dismiss the two elected governments. In the court battles that followed GIK had the benefit of Pirzada’s advice.

Pirzada was author of several books, including Evolution of Pakistan, The Pakistan Resolution and the Historic Lahore Session, Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah’s Correspondence, Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Remedies in Pakistan, the three-volume Foundation of Pakistan and Collected Works of Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah, also in three volumes.

Funeral prayers for Sharifuddin Pirzada will be held on June 4 after Zuhar at Alamgir Masjid, Alamgir Road, Bahadurabad, Karachi.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2017