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THE cat is out of the bag. The government plans to pass another amendment to the Constitution.
After days of secret negotiations, the draft of the proposed amendment was presented in the Senate on Saturday. Proposals include the establishment of a federal constitutional court. The retirement age of the FCC judges will be increased.
Judges of high courts could be transferred against their will and stand retired if they refuse. The first chief justice of the FCC will be appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister. Other proposals include changes in Article 243 abolishing the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, making the Chief of Army Staff the Chief of Defence Forces, and giving field marshals their rank and uniform for lifetime.
To discuss this amendment without its context would be to miss the forest for the trees. The context is this: parliament that stands to pass these amendments is the least representative parliament in Pakistan since the end of the Musharraf era in 2008.
The 2024 elections that resulted in the present government have been widely discredited by internal as well as external election observers — at least those that have dared to say so in public. Internal observers such as Pattan that exposed the rigging had their offices raided and sealed. External observers such as the Commonwealth sat on its report of November 2024 for almost a year until it was leaked. The EU has declined to release its Election Expert Mission Report for fear that it will damage foreign relations with Pakistan. That in itself explains how flattering that report must be.
An independent judiciary constitutes an existential threat to the sham political order created out of those elections. Thus, every attempt has been made to subjugate the judiciary. Independent election tribunals that were inquiring into the irregularities were sidelined by changing the law to allow handpicked retired judges to be appointed as tribunals. When the Supreme Court ruled that reserved seats for minorities and women must be allocated to the PTI, a constitutional amendment was passed to ensure that the author of that judgement would not become the next chief justice of Pakistan (CJP). Constitutional benches were created comprising judges in whose selection the government itself had a say. They conveniently undid the verdict and handed several extra seats to the ruling coalition, thus making an unrepresentative parliament even more unrepresentative.
The point of the amendment is to reward and control.
Since the 26th Amendment, an onslaught of judicial manipulation has ensued, just as intended. Justice Yahya Afridi was appointed CJP out of turn while skipping the two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. In the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan (who was junior even to Justice Afridi) was appointed as the head of the constitutional bench (conveniently voting for himself as the tie-breaker vote). It must have pleased those who appointed Chief Justice Afridi when he promptly consented to parachuting judges from other high courts to the Islamabad High Court to block the appointment of an independent-minded judge as the chief justice of that court. Similarly, it must have been equally pleasing when the constitutional bench rubber-stamped such transfers.
Thus, through a mixture of incentives and coercion the regime has caused the judiciary to turn on itself. At critical moments, such as justice Qazi Faez Isa’s apparent desperation for an extension causing him to overturn the 63A verdict, Justice Afridi’s eagerness to accept the office of CJP at the cost of his colleagues, or Justice Amin-ud-Din’s decision to vote for himself as the head of the constitutional bench, judges of the Supreme Court failed tests of character that could have protected the court and foiled these designs. Judges would do well to remember that Faustian bargains have tragic ends.
The point of the 27th amendment is to reward and control. To ensure that no judge considered unfriendly to the regime can survive and to reward others with extensions in tenure. This is why the FCC with the enhanced age, so that some judges can be allowed to retire while others can be taken to the new court. This is why the power to transfer, so that troublesome judges can be transferred out of the way. This is why the new FCC will be staffed by judges picked by the PM and his handpicked chief justice.
Let no one fool you about what is going on: a political elite ruling against the will of the people is destroying the institutions of this country and defacing its Constitution only to perpetuate their own unrepresentative rule. In the face of this assault, resistance is our duty. If there is a lawmaker with conscience left on the treasury benches, dare one say it, exercise it now.
The writer is a lawyer.
Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2025
