New Delhi: Pakistan’s contentious new federal constitutional court has got a new chief justice with a divided legacy. For some, Justice Aminuddin Khan, is the calm and patient man who is not ‘perturbed even when cases drag on like a soap opera’, for others he is the one ‘close to the establishment’ who delivers verdicts in support of them.
Khan was set to retire from the now ‘obliterated’ apex court of the country on 30 November. Now, he begins the most powerful chapter of his judicial career.
The Federal Constitution Court (FCC) was born out of the hotly debated 27th Constitutional Amendment passed Thursday. It has been called the ‘biggest overhaul the judiciary’ has seen in decades.
It thus places immense authority in the hands of a single court and for the next three years, on its inaugural chief.
That is because the 27th Amendment changes the course of Pakistan’s judicial landscape. The court now has singular authority on constitutional interpretation, judicial review and disputes involving fundamental rights— powers that were once with the Supreme court.
“He is now the sole custodian of judicial review in the country,” Ijaz Ahmed, an advocate of the Supreme Court, told ThePrint. He added that while the perception about him is not great today, historically, people have changed when they finally hold a position independent of the government’s will.
“If he chooses to rise to the occasion, his legacy will be positive. If he continues in the direction of his two major judgments, then it’s bad news for judicial review and enforcement of fundamental rights,” he said.
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A contentious judicial trail
Ahmed’s comments refer to Khan’s recent judicial rulings. The 65-year-old, who began his career in the Lahore High Court, is a second-generation lawyer who built his reputation as a mild-mannered, patient jurist who rarely lost his composure on the bench.
He has handled only a few constitutional matters under the constitutional benches of the Supreme Court, created as part of the 26th Amendment in 2024, and gave highly politicised rulings—ones that define his legacy.
The two particularly controversial rulings under Khan are both related to Imran Khan. One was the military courts case, under which military trials were effectively legitimised in Pakistan post the arrest of Imran Khan and subsequent protests on 9 May 2023, and the second was the PTI reserved seats case, where a previous judgment allowing PTI to obtain reserved seats were set aside by the constitutional bench.
In May this year, Justice Khan wrote the majority opinion restoring key provisions of the Pakistan Army Act, allowing civilians accused of involvement in the 9 May 2023 protests to be tried in military courts.
While the judgment cited constitutional provisions on the limits of fundamental rights, many saw it as aligning with the military’s push to prosecute supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“People viewed this as a decision that supported the military’s crackdown on PTI workers,” Mirza Shahzad Akbar, lawyer and former advisor to Imran Khan told ThePrint.
As head of the Constitutional Bench, Justice Khan also presided over the June ruling that stripped PTI of its reserved seats in legislatures, redistributing them to rival parties. The decision paved the way for the ruling coalition to secure a two-thirds majority.
“These judgments have given him a clear pro-establishment perception in a country, judicial review is the citizen’s only protection against the state,” Ahmed said.
Last year, he was part of the five-member bench that reversed a 2022 ruling on parliamentary defection, restoring the ability of lawmakers’ dissenting votes to be counted. The ruling had significant implications for coalition politics and executive stability.
Khan also heard challenges to the contentious 26th Amendment, which restructured judicial authority and paved the way for the very bench he later led. The case was delisted and now awaits reassignment under the new FCC structure.
“In terms of legacy, the situation has now fundamentally changed for Justice Aminuddin. As head of the earlier Constitutional Bench, his position was always subject to the government’s decisions—benches were constituted for three, six or nine months at a time and never on a permanent basis. But as Chief Justice of the new Federal Constitutional Court, he now has a constitutionally protected three-year tenure, lasting until he turns 68,” Ahmed said.
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Where his loyalties lie
Among segments of the legal community and political opposition, Justice Khan is widely viewed as “pro-establishment.” That perception has grown from rulings seen as beneficial to the military or to governments aligned with it.
“He is considered a product of the same judicial culture that has long worked in parallel with the establishment,” Akbar said.
Ahmed, however, offered a more cautious assessment. The new role, he argued, gives Justice Khan unprecedented independence: “He now has a constitutionally guaranteed tenure and is no longer dependent on government preferences. This is the first time he can build a legacy entirely on his own.”
With the FCC taking over constitutional jurisdiction from the Supreme Court, several politically explosive matters are expected to land before Justice Khan: Imran Khan’s incarceration, disqualification appeals, and cases involving his party’s electoral status, challenges to military involvement in civilian affairs, including the legality of military trials and detentions, petitions contesting the 26th and 27th Amendments themselves, which critics say have placed unchecked constitutional power under military influence, cases on judicial independence, including transfers of judges and alleged interference in the judiciary
As head of the FCC, he will have the ability to pull cases from high courts at will, a power that dramatically expands his influence over Pakistan’s political and constitutional future.
“The creation of a Constitutional Court, the effective weakening of the Supreme Court, and the establishment of a new command post within the military are not isolated developments—they form part of a broader plan by General Asim Munir to entrench his unconstitutional hold over the state,” Akbar said.
According to him, what is “most tragic” is that political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari, and judges such as Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Yahya Afridi (current Chief Justice), chose to facilitate this project instead of resisting it.
“Their actions have not merely enabled an illegitimate consolidation of power; they have contributed to the systematic disabling of Pakistan’s institutional foundations,” Akbar said.
However, Ahmed argues that when viewed optimistically, Khan is perhaps the only figure in the current judicial structure who is formally insulated from executive influence “in letter, if not necessarily in practice.”
There is precedent in Pakistan’s judicial history for individuals to change course once they occupy positions of genuine security and independence. Still, as Ahmed put it, “You can take a man out of his environment, but you can’t always take the environment out of the man.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)