DefinePK

Abstract

Since 2020 Pakistan’s superior courts have re-imagined the country’s colonial animal-welfare patchwork as an incipient rights regime, grounding protections in constitutional dignity, scientific evidence of sentience and Qur’anic ethics of mercy. This article analyses whether that doctrinal leap is being matched by enforcement and legislation. Using an integrated socio-legal methodology—doctrinal coding of thirty-five judgments, text mining of four provincial bills, a compliance database of eighty- eight structural directives, and twenty-two elite interviews—the study maps the emerging feedback loop between benches, legislatures and street-level inspectors. Results reveal a rapidly consolidating “dignity–sentience–mercy” triad and a 66 % shift from welfare to fundamental rights language. Compliance, however, remains uneven: discrete relocation orders enjoy 100 % success, yet diffuse mandates attain only 38 % full implementation unless backed by modern statutes with credible fines and ring-fenced funds. Legislative borrowing is vigorous—half of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s 2024 Act mirrors court dicta—but provincial divergence invites regulatory arbitrage. Stakeholder interviews affirm growing public support but warn that cultural resistance endures in districts and rural municipalities. The article concludes that Pakistan’s experiment can mature into a durable interspecies-justice architecture only if federal harmonization, inspectorate training and budgetary earmarks accompany the courts’ doctrinal ambition.