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" ROLE OF COMMISSIONS   ROLE OF COMMISSIONS IN PUBLIC INTEREST ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION IN PAKISTAN*   By   Dr. Parvez Hassan, Advocate and Ahmad Rafay Alam, Advocate Lahore   A. Growth and Development of Public Interest Environmental Litigation     * A paper presented at the 4th National Judicial Conference organized by the National Judicial Policy Making Committee on 22-24 April, 2011 held at the Supreme Court Building, Islamabad. The authors have benefited from an earlier presentation delivered by co-author Parvez Hassan, on "The Role of the Judiciary and Judicial Commissions on Sustainable Development Issues in South Asia", at the Second International Elizabeth Haub Symposium in Murnau, Germany, on 20-22 September, 2006 (the article is published in 3 Environmental Policy and Law, No. 2 (2007); 185-193). The authors acknowledge, gratefully, the research assistance of M. Maham Naqshband in the preparation of this paper.   The Pakistani judiciary has, over the past two decades, developed a dense jurisprudence of public interest environmental litigation ("PIEL") to enforce the constitutionally protected Fundamental Rights of the public.1 The pioneering judgments in Benazir Bhutto v. President of Pakistan2 and the Darshan Masih case recognized the limitations of the "Anglo-Saxon outgrowth"3 our system of adversarial litigation represented and sought to provide new procedural mechanisms to ensure substantial justice for large segments of society. More recently, the Supreme Court has taken suo motu notice of public interest issues as varied as the privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation Limited4, the New Murree Development case5 and loan write-offs.6   1. For a detailed survey of public…