New Delhi: A new Constitutional Amendment Bill aimed at giving the executive more power over the judiciary has stirred controversy in Pakistan, pitting judges and Opposition parties against the ruling government.
The Shehbaz Sharif government proposed the 26th ‘constitutional amendment package’—reforms that would not only reshape the judiciary but also create a new ‘constitutional court’. Lawyers and political leaders have termed the amendments as “the work of the devil” and a “national suicide pact”.
“This constitutional package is not a package, it is an attack on the constitution, democracy and the judiciary of Pakistan,” Supreme Court lawyer Faisal Chaudhry told ThePrint. This so-called constitutional package, he said, is laced “with evil intentions to take Pakistan into the dark ages,” further calling it a “dark, evil and authoritarian legislation where the office of the Chief Justice has been virtually abolished just to keep Qazi in office.”
The secrecy surrounding the details of the amendments, combined with the government’s bungled attempts to secure votes, has only added fuel to the fire.
To advance its proposed package, the government needs to secure at least 224 votes out of 336 in the National Assembly (Lower House) and 64 out of 96 in the Senate (Upper House). Despite PM Sharif’s efforts, the Opposition refused to back the bill. With 214 votes in the National Assembly and 57 in the Senate, the government has fallen short of the required numbers.
“While the constitutional amendments are being undertaken to weaken the Supreme Court and fragment its jurisdiction by vesting constitutional matters in the Federal Constitutional court, having an FCC is not necessarily a bad thing. Pakistan, in the long run, needs a dedicated constitutional court because the Supreme Court is overwhelmed,” lawyer Yaseer Latif Hamdani told ThePrint.
Meanwhile, the Opposition, led by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, has raised the red flag, calling the proposed changes “unconstitutional” and accusing the government of keeping the draft secret. The party has also alleged that the Shehbaz Sharif administration is trying to rush the bill to appoint the current Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa as the head of the new court after his retirement on 25 October. Other parties, such as the Balochistan National Party, have claimed that they are being pressured to vote for the bill.
A draft of the proposed amendments circulated in the media Monday, but the government has neither confirmed nor refuted the draft’s authenticity, Dawn reported.
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What does the revised bill state?
In the revised bill, the government intends to introduce a Federal Constitutional Court alongside the Supreme Court. This court would handle cases solely related to constitutional interpretations. Its chief justice would be appointed by the president in consultation with the PM. The president would then handpick the remaining judges following consultations with the newly appointed CJP.
To sweeten the deal, the amendments suggest increasing the retirement age for judges in this new court to 68, while other judges would retire at 65. On top of that, judges in the Constitutional Court would only serve three-year terms.
The proposed amendments also seek to overturn a Supreme Court ruling from May 2022, which required legislators to stick to party lines when voting. Under the new rules, legislators would be able to vote freely—which might be a ploy to encourage them to vote for these very amendments.
The proposed reforms also include a provision that bars any court, whether new or existing, from examining the actions of officials operating under “national security” laws, effectively shielding these actions from judicial scrutiny.
Moreover, the proposed changes would allow for the transfer of high court judges or sensitive cases between high courts without the need for consent.
“The comedy that Pakistan is…. this ‘proposed amendment’ cannot get any more personal,” wrote journalist Arifa Noor in an op-ed for Dawn.
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‘National suicide’
Social media users, too, panned the bill.
“If this Cantt-stititional amendment floats, remember that 130 million registered voters of this country will be traded in a market of impunity like barrel bugs, all for two men. A civilian, a General. Rest of us get to choose which crisis – economy, terror or health do we die in”, one X user wrote.
Lawyer Salahuddin Ahmed said that “for all practical purposes, therefore, the bill abolishes the Supreme Court of Pakistan. A more fundamental attack on the basic structure of our Constitution and the trichotomy of powers enshrined therein is hard to imagine.”
Senior political leaders have also criticised the bill, calling it, according to Dawn, an “unprecedented assault on the Constitution and Supreme Court and the High Courts through a dubious and questionable constitutional amendments package”.
Pakistan politician and attorney Salman Akram Raja called the proposed constitutional amendments “the work of the devil”.
‘Lawyers lending whatever drafting skill they have (and not much was needed) to create something like this must feel like a surgeon who takes out the kidney of a crippled 14 year old for sale in some dark market”, he further wrote on X.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)