ONE day, the humbling of the present-day judiciary may be remembered as a tragedy. For now, it resembles a spectacle.

Earlier this week, four judges of the Islamabad High Court approached the Supreme Court, hoping to challenge the recently enacted 27th Amendment. Instead of the senior judges being given an audience, they were told to take their issues to the Federal Constitutional Court. In other words, the petitioners were told to seek justice from an institution whose very creation they were there to challenge.

It was a sobering moment. The four judges had petitioned the Supreme Court after months of voicing their apprehensions regarding the “incremental but systematic dismantling” of judicial independence, a process which began with the passage of the 26th Amendment and ended in the most recent constitutional changes. Instead, they appeared to find the Supreme Court more than deferential to an institution that had subverted its authority.

One must highlight again that these were not ordinary petitioners. All four are sitting judges — recognised members of the country’s superior judiciary. All four would seem to strongly believe that the new amendment is severely violative of several established articles of the Constitution. The objections they raised in their petition regarding the appointment of the new court, the transfer of judges on executive whim, and the decimation of judicial independence through institutional capture and the installation of ‘like-minded’ judges are questions that have also been raised by legal experts, international observers, as well as concerned members of the public. For them to be brushed aside as brusquely as parliament had the amendment enacted merely reinforces the perception that a future has been chosen for the judiciary, and that no debate or legal cross-examination of the ‘why’ and ‘what for’ will be able to change it.

The legal fight has now become even more complicated. On Saturday, the four judges, joined by one more, challenged the transfer from the Supreme Court to the FCC of an intra-court appeal against a Constitutional Bench judgement deeming the transfer of judges from other high courts to the IHC ‘constitutional’. They have now told the FCC directly that they consider the 27th Amendment ‘unconstitutional’ and reminded it that the amendment is under challenge.

Now, those in the judiciary who have agreed with the regime on the 27th Amendment may choose to stick to their guns. And they are free to do so. But they should satisfy the petitioners, and all those who will be following this case, that any decision to uphold the amendment rests on sound legal reasoning and not another ‘doctrine’. This case must be heard in detail, and the proceedings should ideally be televised for public consumption. This is an opportunity for the FCC to establish its credentials. It must avail it.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2025