• 234 votes polled in favour, four against it by JUI-F members amid opposition boycott as PTI stages walkout
• Senate to vote on bill again after some changes
• Bilawal says amendment to fulfil ‘Charter of Democracy’ promises, vows no harm to 18th Amendment
• Achakzai, Gohar assail ‘undemocratic’ changes as PTI terms bill ‘death’ of 1973 Constitution

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Wednesday passed the 27th Constitutional Amendment Bill in a session marred by noisy protests and a walkout by the opposition lawmakers, who took exception to the amendments, describing them as “undemocratic”.

The bill had 59 clauses and eight were changed in the final draft tabled before the lower house of parliament. The draft was slightly different from the one passed by the Senate on Monday. The fresh changes, mostly related to the chief justice of Pakistan, were introduced in the bill by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar.

In the house of 336 members, 224 votes were required to meet the mandatory two-thirds majority for the passage of the bill. The ruling lawmakers cast 234 votes in its favour, while four votes were polled against the bill by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) members. The JUI-F has 10 MNAs, but only four attended the sitting. The PTI members, meanwhile, boycotted the process by staging a walkout.

At the outset, the house proceedings moved forward smoothly, and several MNAs, including PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and opposition alliance leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai, spoke on the floor of the house. The situation began to deteriorate when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and PML-N President Nawaz Sharif arrived in the hall. At this, the PTI lawmakers started chanting slogans targeting the PML-N leaders and against the constitutional amendment.

Ruckus in the house

During the protest, PML-N MNAs made a shield in front of the PM and Nawaz Sharif to prevent the PTI members from approaching the premier and the party chief. Similarly, the security guards of the Parliament House also came closer to the PM for his security. The protest also disrupted the law minister’s and the PPP chief’s speeches, and the opposition members tore up the copies of the bill and flung them towards the PM’s chair.

Interestingly, PTI firebrand leader Sher Afzal Marwat did not join the protest and remained seated even after the opposition MNAs walked out of the house in protest. Later, he went directly to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to meet him and listened to the PM’s speech. As the premier spoke in the house, PTI MNA Iqbal Khan Afridi again entered the house with a banner in his hands, which carried the portrait of PTI founder Imran Khan. He went to the speaker’s dais and kept displaying the banner to the PM throughout his speech.

When Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar started reading clauses of the bill, the opposition members gathered in front of the speaker’s dais to continue with their noisy protest. The bill, however, was passed by the National Assembly with the required majority. After its passage from the NA, it will be sent to the Senate for its approval due to some amendments that were introduced during the NA session.

Bilawal defends Article 243 changes

Speaking on the floor of the house, the PPP chairman vowed that they would never support the rollback of the 18th Amendment and of any laws that would go against the basic rights of the people.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari chairman said his party decided to support the changes in Article 243 in the “context that Pakistan is going through a situation of war”. “On the one hand, we defeated India. On the other hand, India hosted the Afghan foreign minister, and what is happening on our second border after that, the blood spilling of our citizens is in front of you,” he said. The PPP leader said terrorism was once again on the rise, but Pakistan had managed to defeat the menace before and would do so again.

“In the 27th Amendment, we are about to fulfill the unfulfilled promises of the Charter of Democracy. We are about to establish constitutional courts, and in Article 243 — after defeating India, the prime minister decided to make the army chief the field marshal — not only are we providing constitutional protection to that rank of field marshal, but also bringing some changes to the defence institutions,” he said.

Opp assails 27th Amendment

PTI interim chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, however, assailed the amendment. He said by rushing the amendments, “you have sunk the ship of democracy and judicial independence”. “They introduced another amendment that we’re only seeing for the first time,” he lamented.

Furthermore, Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai termed the amendment “undemocratic and of the wrong kind”. He noted that even those were included in advancing those who had “given huge sacrifices”, recalling that ex-premiers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto had to spend years abroad in exile for “wanting rule of the people”.

“You stole the mandate, respected speaker. I am sorry [but] you have stolen the mandate,” the opposition leader thundered. He went on to cite two more such alleged cases, but his full comments were unclear as the video uploaded by the NA was censored. The PkMAP leader said, “Whether Imran Khan is a good person or a bad person … why did you let him become the prime minister? Why did you keep all institutions of the country in front of him? And then obstructed his path from the courts to the streets.”

Tarar calls out PTI

Meanwhile, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar alleged that the PTI had been accepting of “fascism” in the past, saying that in contrast, they had a problem today when parliament was on its way to pass a constitutional amendment through a legal strategy, political process and consultation.

“This selective morality, selective justice, double standards — what exactly is their politics other than this?” he said, asking why the PTI did not chant such slogans when former NA deputy speaker Qasim Khan Suri made the unconstitutional move of dismissing the no-confidence motion against Imran in 2022.

“Their selective memory and thinking do not go back any further than 2020,” he said, referring to the PTI. “They should apologise for what they did in 2017 and the way they came into power through the back door.” The minister regretted that “most of Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s speech today was all about Kabul”.

PTI statement

In a separate statement after the session, the PTI termed the 27th amendment the death of the Constitution. Pakistan’s consensus Cons­titution of 1973 — the supreme guarantor of public sovereignty, judicial independence, and fundamental rights — has officially “passed away”, the former ruling party claimed. “Governments refle­cting the will of the people are no longer allowed to function, the courts no longer dare to deliver justice, and the media is no longer permitted to speak the truth,” it stated. However, the PTI pledged that the party would leave no stone unturned in its struggle to revive the Constitution and restore it to its pre-26th Amendment form, it concluded.

Ikram Junaidi also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2025