Oppn vows nationwide protests as Pakistan moves to pass 27th Constitutional Amendment

Islamabad | As Pakistan’s parliament prepares to pass the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment, the Opposition has slammed the move as one that will shake "the foundations of the Constitution” and announced nationwide protests from Sunday.

The amendment proposes a change in Article 243, seeking to abolish the "Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee" (CJCSC) position and introduce a new title, "Chief of Defence Forces".

Other proposals include the establishment of a Federal Constitutional Court and revisions to the process of appointing high court judges.

It also aims to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, with some authorities shifted to the proposed Constitutional Court, and immunity to the president from criminal proceedings for life.

Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar tabled the amendment in the Senate, the upper house, on Saturday, and the Chairman Yusuf Raza Gilani sent it to a house committee for discussion before it is taken up for voting.

The committee chairman Farooq Naek told the media that they would complete the task by creating consensus among the members.

The government is hopeful of getting a two-thirds majority of at least 64 senators when voting is called on Monday.

After the Senate, it would be presented before the National Assembly, where it must pass a two-thirds majority again. In the final stage, it must get the president's approval to become a law.  

The Tehreek-e-Tahafuz Ayeen-e-Pakistan (TTAP), a multi-party opposition alliance, announced a nationwide protest movement against the amendment.

"Democratic institutions have been paralysed within Pakistan… the nation must step up against the [proposed] 27th Amendment," Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) chief Allama Raja Nasir Abbas said in a statement.

MWM is part of the TTAP along with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan. The alliance also includes the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) and the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

PkMAP Chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai said that the nationwide movement would begin on Sunday.

"Our slogan will be 'Long live democracy', 'down with dictatorship.' Our third slogan will call for the release of [political] prisoners," he said.

The PkMAP chief said that the opposition alliance had no choice but to launch a protest movement following the government’s move, which, according to him, was "shaking the foundations of the Constitution".

Legal experts are divided over the merits of the amendment, with many believing that the tweaks would, in effect, dethrone the Supreme Court as the country’s highest judicial forum, ceding that position to a proposed Federal Constitutional Court (FCC).

However, proponents of the amendment say the new constitutional court would modernise the judiciary, reduce backlogs and separate constitutional and appellate jurisdictions — a reform they argue will improve efficiency and clarity in the justice system, reported the Dawn newspaper.

“Left with a limited jurisdiction of deciding ordinary civil, criminal and statutory appeals, the Supreme Court has now become all the more a ‘Supreme District Court’,” a senior counsel told Dawn.

He warned that the government could now amend laws like the Elections Act 2017 and others to route appeals to the FCC instead of the Supreme Court.

Amendment to Article 175, he said, was “virtually the end of the judiciary as we knew it”, arguing that the Supreme Court had been “amended out of the Constitution by making it irrelevant”.

According to former additional attorney general Tariq Mehmood Khokhar, the proposed amendments tighten executive control over the superior judiciary through expanded powers to transfer high court judges, and establish an FCC “empowered by disempowering the Supreme Court”.

It also formally vests the office of Chief of the Defence Forces in the Chief of the Army Staff and constitutionally guarantees the Field Marshal rank for life, he said

Another lawyer, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that although the senior-most of the two chiefs would chair the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, “for all other purposes, the FCC will be in the commanding position”.

He noted that under the amended Article 175A, the chief justice of the FCC is listed before the chief justice of the Supreme Court and will have a longer tenure, retiring at 68, compared to the current retirement age of 65 for Supreme Court judges.

In contrast, senior counsel Hafiz Ahsaan Ahmad Khokhar welcomed the initiative, calling the proposed 27th Amendment “a major and long-awaited structural shift” in the justice system.

He said the creation of two separate apex courts — the existing Supreme Court dealing primarily with appellate functions, and a new FCC with exclusive jurisdiction over constitutional interpretation, inter-governmental disputes and matters arising under Article 199 — reflected “a forward-looking reform model”.

This division, he argued, would provide “greater clarity, efficiency and constitutional coherence”.

He said the reforms could help depoliticise the higher judiciary, eliminate internal divisions, reduce backlogs and prevent overlapping between constitutional and appellate benches.

Khokhar said the amendments to Article 243 were in line with “modern constitutional democracies”, with a unified advisory framework under a principal military adviser answerable to the prime minister, the defence minister and the National Security Committee.

Meanwhile, newly elected Supreme Court Bar Association President Haroonur Rasheed supported the idea of setting up an FCC.