'Osama Siddique has produced a theoretically informed and historically grounded study of Pakistans engagement with formal law. This book makes a compelling argument that history matters and the perceptions of ordinary citizens are relevant in crafting a meaningful course towards legal reform. Historians, lawyers, social scientists and policy-makers will read it with profit.' Sugata Bose, Harvard University
Introduction; 1. The hegemony of heritage: the 'narratives of colonial displacement' and the absence of the past in Pakistani reform narratives; 2. Law in practice: the Lahore district courts litigants survey (2010–2011); 3. Law, crime, context and vulnerability: the Punjab crime perception survey (2009–2010); 4. Approaches to legal and judicial reform in Pakistan: postcolonial inertia and the paucity of imagination in times of turmoil and change; 5. Reform on paper: a post-mortem of justice sector reform in Pakistan from 1998–2010; 6. Reform nirvanas and reality checks: justice sector reform in Pakistan in the twenty-first century and the monopoly of the 'experts'; 7. Towards a new approach; Appendices.