DR NAUMAN REAYAT.

I would like to introduce myself as the person who brought together judges, journalists, civil society organizations, and scholars from around the world to establish this network. I have organized all its activities, with the exception of the international conference, which I co-organized with my Co-Convener from September 27-29, 2023. Additionally, I developed and currently manage this website. Details of these activities can be found on various pages throughout the site. The network’s history and my activities are connected to each other.

TEACHING

I am currently teaching Analysing Law, EU Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Canadian Constitutional Law at Leicester Law School.

In 2022, I briefly led the Torts, Jurisprudence, and Legal Skills and Methods modules at the Institute of Law, Jersey, where I developed lectures, assessments, and tutorials for these courses. During the same year, I also taught Political Ideologies and Political Parties, Global Governance and Regulation, Human Rights, UK Government: System and Structures, and Public Law at the University of Law.

Since obtaining the Certificate of Qualification from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) in 2022, I have briefly provided private online tuition in Canadian Constitutional Law, Canadian Contract Law, Canadian Criminal Law, and the Foundations of Canadian Law to individuals in South Asia and Africa preparing for the National Committee on Accreditation exams conducted by the FLSC to qualify as lawyers in Canada. My students achieved a 97% pass rate.

From 2016 to 2021, I taught modules such as The Individual, State, and Society, Democratic Politics of the UK and EU, Research Integrity, Research Methodology, and Social Policy at the International Pathway College, Department of Politics, and the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York. I also developed a non-accredited module, Politics and Society of the Global South, for the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York. In 2019, I earned an Associate Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy, UK.

From 2013 to 2016, I taught a range of subjects in Pakistan, including South Asian History, Research Methodology, Judicial and Constitutional Developments in Pakistan, Comparative Politics, and Pakistan Studies.

RESEARCH

My PhD research is one of the few interdisciplinary studies that explores distinct aspects of de jure (constitutional guarantees provided to the judiciary) and de facto (behavioral) judicial independence in both authoritarian regimes (where power is centralized in an individual or group) and hybrid regimes (which combine autocratic and democratic elements). It advances the field of judicial independence by offering new insights into how a combination of social, political, and legal factors shapes its nature and scope.

During my ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-2022) at the Cardiff School of Law and Politics, I secured two monograph contracts: one with Palgrave Macmillan on judicial independence in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Colombia, and another with Springer on judicial populism in Pakistan. The first monograph, based on my postdoctoral research, goes beyond the case of Pakistan to compare judicial independence in Colombia, Indonesia, and Pakistan. The second monograph, based on my PhD research, focuses on judicial populism in Pakistan.

PUBLICATIONS:

Judicial Independence in Transitional Democracies Edited By Nauman Reayat, Rhona K. M. Smith, Moohyung Cho

Nauman Reayat, Juristocracy before, during, and after COVID-19: Evidence from Pakistan (2023). The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Nijhoff. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004538627

Nauman R, Iftikhar A, Jehanzeb K, Tariq R. Fiscal Decentralisation: What Does the International Experience Suggests. Life Sci J 2014;11(7s):1-10]. (ISSN:1097-8135). doi:10.7537/marslsj1107s14.01

Nauman R, Iftikhar A, Jehanzeb K, and Tariq Rahim. 2014. Fiscal Decentralisation and its effects on Health Sector of Pakistan Economics, Discussion Paper No 2014-16 See full paper here

Research Funding

I completed my fully funded PhD project (£80,000 allocated by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan) on judicial independence in authoritarian and hybrid regimes between 2016 and 2020.

During my PhD research, I secured additional funding to present at various international conferences, including £1,250 from the Graduate Research School at the University of York (2017-2019), $500 from the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) for their 2019 annual conference, $200 from the Australian New Zealand Studies Association of North America (ANZSANA) for their 2019 annual conference at the University of Texas, USA, £1,500 from the Department of Politics, University of York (2016-2018), and £250 from the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) for their 2017 annual conference.

I received £120,442.00 from Cardiff University and the ESRC for my postdoctoral project on judicial independence in authoritarian and hybrid regimes for the year 2021-2022. Additionally, I completed a one-year Postdoctoral Fellows Development Programme, jointly organized by the ESRC and Bridget Sealey Associates.

Impact Outside Academia

During my PhD research, I presented some of my findings on online courts at the International Judicial Conference of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2018. These findings were subsequently reviewed by the Judicial Decision-Making Committee of Pakistan, which was exploring judicial reforms aimed at providing speedy and inexpensive justice and addressing the backlog of cases through the implementation of online courts.

Activities outside academia