By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Amnesty International on Tuesday denounced Pakistan’s newly enacted 27th Constitutional Amendment as the culmination of a prolonged campaign to undermine the judiciary’s autonomy, the right to a fair trial and the broader rule of law, urging an immediate review to align it with international human rights standards.
The amendment, which sailed through Parliament after five days of fierce debate, opposition walkouts and eleventh-hour tweaks, has drawn sharp rebukes for creating a Federal Constitutional Court and overhauling Article 243, which governs the command structure of the armed forces. Critics argue that these changes effectively shield top military leaders from scrutiny while eroding judicial safeguards.
In a blistering statement, the human rights organisation described the measure as the “crescendo of a concerted and sustained attack on the independence of the judiciary, right to fair trial and the rule of law in Pakistan.” It called on the government to undertake an urgent review to “ensure that all its provisions fully comply with Pakistan’s international human rights law obligations and commitments.”
The group further charged that the amendment “insulates the president and heads of the naval, armed and air forces from accountability,” granting them sweeping protections that could foster impunity. “The Pakistani authorities must immediately take all appropriate measures to safeguard the impartiality, independence and safety of judges, ensuring that they can carry out their judicial functions without any inappropriate or unwarranted interference and any restrictions, improper influences, pressures and threats, direct or indirect, from any quarter or for any reason,” Amnesty said.
It asserted that the legislation violates “international human rights law, particularly undermining the independence of the judiciary, right to fair trial and justice and accountability,” and pressed authorities to “uphold their international human rights obligations, effectively protect the human rights of everyone in the country, and ensure access to justice and effective remedies for victims, as well as respect the separation of powers and the rule of law.”
Amnesty highlighted the establishment of the Federal Constitutional Court, which it said “lacks independence, erodes judges’ security.” Despite the amendment’s sweeping impact, it was rammed through Parliament “with no consultation with civil society and opposition parties,” the statement noted.
The rights group pointed to a wave of judicial resignations in the amendment’s wake: On the day it was signed into law, Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah stepped down. Two days later, former Lahore High Court judge Shams Mehmood Mirza followed suit. This latest overhaul builds on the 26th Constitutional Amendment, passed in 2024, which Amnesty said had already “weakened” judicial independence. That earlier measure cleared Parliament “with similar haste, in less than 24 hours in October 2024,” reshaping the Judicial Commission of Pakistan by adding parliamentary members and reducing judges to a minority. Such a shift “risks politicisation” of judicial appointments, Amnesty warned.
Under the 26th Amendment, the Supreme Court’s original and advisory jurisdictions — including its power to initiate cases or opine on major legal questions — were shifted to new Constitutional Benches with exclusive authority over constitutional interpretations. “A little over a year after the Constitutional Benches were constituted, the twenty-seventh amendment abolished the bench at the Supreme Court level and replaced it with a separate court — the Federal Constitutional Court,” the group said.
These reforms arrive amid mounting alarms over judicial interference. Amnesty cited “larger concerns regarding attacks on the judiciary” in recent years, including judges’ reports of meddling by intelligence agencies and threats tied to high-stakes cases involving the ruling coalition and the military.
The organization recalled a March 2024 open letter from six Islamabad High Court judges — Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Saman Rafat Imtiaz — to then-Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa. The letter detailed “intimidation by the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), abduction of family members of judges and surveillance in the judge’s private homes as tactics to pressurise them regarding ongoing cases, particularly those related to the former Prime Minister Imran Khan.”
In response, the Supreme Court solicited input from high courts, with the Peshawar High Court acknowledging that interference by the executive was an “open secret.” Judges handling “political” cases faced threats from intelligence agencies, both online and in person, the Peshawar court replied.
Amnesty also referenced an April 2024 episode in which Supreme Court and high court judges received letters laced with suspicious powder. That same month, an online smear campaign targeted Justice Sattar, one of the letter’s signatories. Separately, an anonymous complaint accused Justice Kayani of “bias” and “favouritism,” though the Supreme Judicial Council never pursued it.
Another letter author, Justice Jahangiri, was ousted in December 2025 over questions about his law degree’s validity. He protested that the proceedings skirted constitutional removal protocols and involved a conflicted bench, including Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar, whom Jahangiri had challenged in the Supreme Court over eligibility.
The 27th Amendment’s rushed adoption drew international scrutiny. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk labeled it “hastily adopted,” faulting the lack of “broad consultation and debate with the legal community and wider civil society.” Pakistan’s own Human Rights Commission echoed those concerns, decrying the absence of input from opposition politicians, lawyers and civil society.
Amnesty detailed the amendment’s parliamentary journey: The draft emerged publicly only on November 8, hours after cabinet approval, when it hit the Senate. “At no point during this process were civil society and other stakeholders consulted or given an opportunity to provide feedback on the draft amendment,” the group said.
The vote occurred against a backdrop of disputed parliamentary makeup. Opposition figures in both houses had been sidelined after convictions in anti-terrorism courts linked to protests after Imran Khan’s May 9, 2023, arrest. Additionally, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party lost its election symbol ahead of the 2024 polls, forcing its candidates to run as independents. Eighty PTI-backed independents joined the Sunni Ittehad Council to secure reserved seats, and a July 2024 Supreme Court ruling affirmed PTI’s entitlement to them, potentially making the bloc the National Assembly’s largest with 114 seats.
But after the 26th Amendment, a Constitutional Bench revisited the decision in June 2025, deeming PTI ineligible. The seats were redistributed to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan Peoples Party and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, bolstering the ruling coalition’s two-thirds majority. The Federal Constitutional Court’s creation carries profound risks for human rights, Amnesty warned. Cases involving fundamental rights will now fall under its purview, potentially hampering access to justice. Powers to review government bans on political parties — under Article 17, protecting freedom of association — have shifted there too. “This has severe implications as the government has publicly made statements intending to ban its largest opposition party, PTI, in the past and the Punjab Assembly has passed a resolution to ban the PTI for being a ‘national security threat,’” the statement said.
Jurisdictional overlaps between the Supreme Court and the new court could spawn delays and confusion, Amnesty added, noting the Federal Constitutional Court isn’t bound by Supreme Court precedents. Initial appointments bypass the Judicial Commission: The president, on the prime minister’s advice, selects the chief justice and first judges, inviting “direct political interference.” Future picks remain vulnerable given Parliament’s sway in the commission.
The United Nations special rapporteur on judicial independence has cautioned that involving political branches in selecting judges for sensitive cases risks “court capture,” Amnesty quoted. The president can also adjust the court’s size, potentially ousting unfavorable judges. These fears intensified when the chief justice and initial four judges were sworn in on November 14, 2025 — barely a day after enactment — without any explained criteria.
Changes to high court judge transfers under Article 200 grant the president unchecked authority, subject only to commission input, opening doors to punitive reassignments. Refusal triggers suspension and Supreme Judicial Council review, which can now remove judges for noncompliance — a breach of international norms limiting removals to incapacity or misconduct.
Finally, Amnesty assailed the lifetime immunity for the president and top military ranks like field marshal, marshal of the air force and admiral of the fleet, calling it a recipe for “unchecked and arbitrary use of power.” This contravenes equality before the law under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and denies remedies for victims. While limited immunities exist internationally, they exclude grave crimes, which cannot be deemed official acts.
These ranks are now dubbed “national heroes,” removable only under Article 47’s stringent terms for presidential impeachment: incapacity, constitutional violations or gross misconduct, via a two-thirds parliamentary vote. “It bears noting that the current chief of army staff was appointed as Field Marshal after the conflict with India in May 2025, and stands to benefit directly from these protections,” Amnesty said.
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