For most of Pakistan’s history, the Supreme Court has not been a check on power; it has been an instrument of it. Every decisive turn in the country’s political coup, dismissal, and disqualification has passed through its courtroom. The judges have rarely restrained authority; they have redirected it. The law has too often arrived after politics, dressed in the language of reason to justify what power had already ordained.
The story began in 1954, when the Governor-General dissolved the first Constituent Assembly. The Court could have stood with democracy. Instead, it stood with the executive, teaching the state that legality bends before power. Four years later, Chief Justice Muhammad Munir gave that instinct a doctrine, ruling that a “successful revolution creates its own legality.” The phrase became a permanent licence for Pakistan’s recurring coups. From Ayub to Zia to Musharraf, every military intervention carried a judicial blessing that the Constitution betrayed in the name of saving it.
Even when the soldiers retreated, the judiciary remained political. It simply changed its vocabulary. The doctrine of necessity was replaced by the language of morality. In 2012, the Court removed Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani for contempt, not corruption, a verdict that transformed a political disagreement into a constitutional disqualification. Five years later, it disqualified Nawaz Sharif for failing to declare a salary he never received, a moral trial disguised as law. Yet when similar allegations surfaced against Imran Khan, the same Court found room for interpretation. The text of the Constitution stayed constant; only the temperament of the bench changed with the political weather.
For seventy-five years, the Supreme Court has been the hinge of Pakistan’s power machinery — the stage where governments are made, unmade, and moralised. Every transfer of power has passed through it, and every regime has claimed its blessing. Now, that dominance faces its reckoning.
The proposed Twenty-Seventh Amendment seeks to strip the Supreme Court of its power over constitutional review and transfer it to a new Federal Constitutional Court. Supporters call it a reform, a step towards depoliticising the judiciary and aligning Pakistan with global models. In truth, it is neither cure nor innovation. It merely shifts control from the Chief Justice’s chamber to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.
The robes that once legitimised coups and populists are now being cut down by the very politicians they tried to manage
The government invokes examples from the United States, Germany, and South Africa, where elected leaders help shape judicial appointments. But these comparisons ignore context. Those democracies rest on trust, transparency, and institutional restraint; Pakistan’s rests on suspicion, partisanship, and perpetual crisis. Here, giving the Prime Minister decisive control over appointments is not democratic oversight; it is political capture.
Yet the Supreme Court itself has long been captive to informal power. Appointments to the bench are rarely neutral acts of merit; they are political calculations disguised as procedure. Chief Justices have routinely elevated like-minded judges whose loyalties, ideological leanings, or quiet sympathies align with the establishment’s comfort. Some carry the subtle endorsement of military channels; others rise through the influence of elite bar chambers and legal networks that trade in access, favour, and visibility.
The judicial hierarchy has become its own ecosystem of patronage, where elevation is currency and allegiance the unspoken price. By the time these judges reach the apex bench, they are already products of the same elite they are meant to judge. The results are visible in verdicts that punish civilians, sanctify interventions, and turn political struggles into moral theatre. The Supreme Court has not merely been influenced by politics; it has been produced by it.
That is why its moral authority has decayed. The Court that once crowned generals later acted as moral arbiter over civilians. It chose sides, split benches, and traded consistency for influence. The political parties now backing the Twenty-Seventh Amendment are not striking at an innocent institution; they are striking back at one that weaponised legality against them.
This is not reform but reprisal. The executive’s takeover of the Court is both a blow to judicial independence and a punishment for a judiciary that lost its neutrality. The robes that once legitimised coups and populists are now being cut down by the very politicians they tried to manage. It is less a reform than a revenge, and one that the Court earned.
Still, the creation of a Federal Constitutional Court will not cleanse the system. It will simply inherit the same habits and instincts. The same small circle of judges, shaped by the same incentives and alliances, will occupy a new bench and continue the old games. The seat of discretion will move from the Chief Justice’s chamber to the Prime Minister’s office, but discretion itself will remain untouched.
That is Pakistan’s deeper dilemma: reforms here do not redistribute power; they only relocate it. The Twenty-Seventh Amendment may end the Supreme Court’s monopoly, but it replaces it with an executive one. The robes lose their hold; the government gains it. The cycle continues.
A genuinely independent judiciary demands rules, not rhetoric: fixed terms, transparent appointments, automatic bench formation, and clear limits on political cases. Until those foundations exist, every new court, Supreme or Constitutional, will serve power under a different name.
The robes fall, but the game endures.