LAHORE: Lawyers and legal experts sat together in a session, The State of Constitution: the 27th Amendment, on the last day of Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest to dissect the recent amendment to the Constitution.
Lawyer Asad Rahim Khan said the 27th Amendment should be seen in relation to the 26th Amendment as it was a plan to do away with another plan.
“From 2009 until 2023, or from the restoration of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to the retirement of Justice Umar Ata Bandial, this period is considered an era of independent judiciary whether you praise it or criticise it, the authority that was used during this period was unprecedented in the history of Pakistan. The 26th Amendment reversed it.”
Khan said the executive or the government used to decide appointments of judges from 1947 until the lawyers movement in the Musharraf era when it was decided the appointments would be made by the commission whose majority would consist of judges.
“As per the 26 Amendment, the majority of judicial commission consisted of non-judicial members and the government’s say was prevalent but the 27th Amendment went a step further for the Constitutional Court.”
He said after the 27th Amendment, the appellate courts could now take only rent and family cases and all basic rights like right to opinion, right to vote and right movement would be heard by the federal constitutional court, selected by the executive.
“Its objectives were stated to be to end the pendency of cases, maintain seniority of judges, and constitutional matters would be heard by the judges having expertise in the constitution,” he added that pendency in the Supreme Court was only 2.8pc.
Regarding the seniority of judges, he said, the chief justice of the federal constitution court was not the senior most, chief justice of Pakistan was also not the senior most, the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court was not the senior most and he was called from the Lahore High Court to Islamabad to make him the senior most judge. The third objective of the amendment was stated to be expertise but a majority of judges in the federal constitutional court had expertise in criminal or civil cases only.
Asad Rahim Khan said there were some cases which, though were in favour of the state, were not liked by the government like the ‘90 days case’, army courts and letter of the judges of the Islamabad High Court, the amendment was brought keeping these developments in mind.
“The federal constitutional court’s decisions are binding on all courts but the decisions of the supreme court are not binding on the constitutional court. You decimated the authority of the Supreme Court with just a stroke of pen,” he declared.
Lawyer Abdul Moiz Jafri said the amendment was introduced just to capture power. He endorsed the arguments of Asad, saying that on the excuse of expertise, the ‘unwanted judges’ were being transferred away from the centre, adding that the intent behind the amendment was the capture and subjugation. “They wanted to dismantle the ecosystem of democracy.”
Lawyer Reema Omer referred to the ‘revolutionary legality’ principle of Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen and in Pakistan that concept was used to give legitimacy to the martial law, which meant that after the revolution, a dictator could do anything as per his whims and it would get legitimacy.
“In Pakistan, Hans Kelsen was used for the same purpose many years back.” The idea of Kelsen is also behind the constitutional court which said that “the dogma of parliamentary supremacy must be defeated” and there should be an order beyond the parliament and executive to see whether the parliament was following the constitution.
“When 27th Amendment was passed, law minister Azam Tarar said that time’s gone when prime ministers would be hanged or sent packing but actually the constitutional court’s objective was to introduce an order to check the parliament”.
She said the 27th Amendment did not remove Section 62 (1) (F) that was used to remove Nawaz and Yusuf Raza Gilani from the PM office. “The same provisions could still be used to remove the current PM.” She said people were tricked that the constitutional court was being introduced for supremacy of the parliament while in fact it was a check on the parliament.
Irfan Qadir had a different view from the rest of the panel, saying that the judiciary had got what it deserved and that he had been saying for a long time that the judiciary would have to reap what it was sowing. The purpose right now was to rein in a totally free judiciary that was going beyond its limits, he said and added that it was not the objective of the constitution that the judiciary would subjugate the parliament and the executive, and remove majority of judges at will.
He said the judges were made at the will of the government and parliamentary leaders were being removed, the PMs were being sent home. He referred to the scathing statements of Ali Ahmed Kurd, Aitzaz Ahsan and Salman Raja against the judiciary. He added that earlier the judges tried to harm the practice of lawyers, including his own, and one chief justice was throwing the phone and misbehaving and lawyers were all silent.
Salman Akram Raja said after the February 2024 election, the powers that be realised the need to hide “the lie” after the election and this new law was tailor-made to do that. The earlier judiciary had the power to review the decisions and it was doing the same when military courts were introduced which were challenged and the Supreme Court also gave a verdict against them.
“After the election, there was an issue of reserved seats of women which they did not want to give to the PTI and PTI’s members were declared the independent candidates”. According to Mr Raja, election, military court and reserved seats were the reasons behind the 26th and 27th amendments and they were just an attempt to end democracy and dismantle the PTI.
Salman said every lawyer knew what happened to those judges who were fair and ensured justice. He said there was the rule of the jungle and anybody could be given any punishment while the 27th Amendment was a stamp on this era of subjugation. He declared that his party would continue its fight against this system.
Lawyer Feisal Naqvi also spoke.
Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2026
