The nation has yet to heal from the wounds inflicted by the 26th Constitutional Amendment, and yet, barely a year later, the government appears ready to introduce another constitutional overhaul, the 27th Amendment. The Senate and the National Assembly have just approved the 27th Amendment with a two-thirds majority, despite furious opposition, and it is being called an “assault on the Constitution” and “Pakistan’s 9/11”. The amendment aims to reform sensitive areas: Pakistan’s judicial structure, Article 248 concerning Presidential Immunity, and Article 243 concerning the armed forces.
Amongst other things, legal experts warn that this may prove to be the final nail in the coffin of judicial independence and the separation of powers, two principles upon which the Republic rests.
The 26th Amendment already unsettled Pakistan’s constitutional equilibrium. It changed how judges are appointed, created constitutional benches within the Supreme Court, and gave the legislature and executive a greater say in judicial matters. These changes are currently under challenge before the Supreme Court, where lawyers argue that the amendment violates the “salient features” of the Constitution, features so fundamental that they cannot be altered even by Parliament itself. The 26th Amendment blurred those boundaries.
Now, it seems, the government intends to go even further. Having witnessed the legal obstacles faced by the previous reform attempt, it appears determined to engineer an entirely new judicial architecture through the 27th Amendment. The amendment was passed without substantive debate and in a conspicuously hasty manner; at no stage did the government meaningfully consult, or even seek the input of, the very judiciary whose structure it seeks to remake.
At the heart of the proposal is the abolition of constitutional benches altogether and the creation of a separate Constitutional Court, an institution that would enjoy exclusive jurisdiction over constitutional matters. In parallel, the Supreme Court, divested of its powers under Article 184(3), would be relegated, in the words of its critics, to “an expensive civil court.” This is not a matter of procedural adjustment or administrative fine-tuning. Rather, it represents a profound reconfiguration of Pakistan’s judicial landscape, one that raises serious questions about the separation of powers, institutional balance, and the future trajectory of constitutional adjudication in the country.
But who will appoint the judges of this new Constitutional Court? Under the existing system, defined by the 26th Amendment, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, comprising judges, parliamentarians, and ministers, nominates candidates, but those nominations are finalised by a Parliamentary Committee largely dominated by the government of the day. The amendment preserves the existing framework, thereby underscoring the disquieting reality that the independence of the Constitutional Court stands effectively extinguished.
The 27th Amendment, therefore, represents not reform but regression. It risks dismantling the very safeguards that prevent power from becoming absolute
The danger is clear: a court born of political patronage cannot be a neutral arbiter. Through the passage of this amendment, the government intends to silence all forms of judicial dissent against its actions, thereby establishing a troubling precedent, one that is likely to be wielded not as a shield for democracy, constitutionalism, and judicial independence but as a weapon against them.
Another deeply troubling feature of the proposed amendment is the introduction of judicial transfers and the forced retirement of judges who refuse these transfers. Pakistan’s history is filled with instances where those in power, whether military or civilian, have viewed independent judges as obstacles. The transfer of power, presented as a matter of routine administration, would in practice become a weapon of coercion: judges who displease the government could simply be moved out of key jurisdictions. There is no liberty if the power of judging is not separated from the legislative and executive powers. At its heart, this is not a constitutional reform. It is a political shield.
The government’s obsession with restructuring the judiciary comes against a backdrop of controversy from the Form-45 and Form-47 fiasco to the denial of reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council. These developments have cast long shadows over the coalition’s legitimacy. In such a climate, the judiciary is the one institution capable of holding the government to account. To weaken it, then, is not a coincidence; it is a strategy. The creation of a Constitutional Court packed with loyal judges, alongside powers to transfer or sideline dissenting ones, would ensure that no constitutional challenge to the government could ever truly succeed.
The politicisation of the judiciary in Pakistan is nothing new. Yet, the 27th Amendment takes that process to an unprecedented level. It effectively hands the keys of the justice system to the political elite. The judiciary’s independence is not the privilege of judges, but the right of the people. To compromise is to weaken democracy itself.
Legally, the amendment appears incompatible with the Supreme Court’s ruling in District Bar Association (Rawalpindi) v. Federation of Pakistan, where the Court reaffirmed that Parliament cannot amend the “salient features” of the Constitution, which include democracy, the rule of law, and judicial independence. Any amendment undermining those principles is void ab initio.
Moreover, the amendment directly clashes with the pre-amendment Entry 55 of the Federal Legislative List, set out in the Fourth Schedule to the Constitution. This provision made it unequivocally clear that the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, unlike that of subordinate courts, lies beyond the reach of ordinary legislation and cannot be curtailed, much less reconfigured, even through a constitutional amendment. Thus, the 27th Amendment stands on precarious constitutional ground.
History, too, offers a warning. Pakistan’s political arena is fickle; those who wield power today often find themselves in the dock tomorrow. The same judicial tools used to shield one government can later be turned against it. To weaken the judiciary is to invite tyranny by any future ruler, of any party, at any time.
The 27th Amendment, therefore, represents not reform but regression. It risks dismantling the very safeguards that prevent power from becoming absolute. If enacted, it would not only silence the Supreme Court’s constitutional voice but also turn the judiciary into a political instrument. This is not merely a debate about legal procedure; it is about the survival of constitutional democracy itself. At stake is more than the independence of one institution; it is the integrity of the Republic. And once that is lost, it may never be restored.