Pakistan passes amendment allowing parliament to choose supreme judge | Court News

The chief justice of the Supreme Court will now be chosen by a parliamentary committee and will have a fixed term of three years.

Pakistan's government has approved new constitutional amendments to give lawmakers more power in appointing the top judge, a move seen as marginalizing courts that allegedly favored jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The 26th constitutional amendment bill was passed early Monday, marking the culmination of months of negotiations followed by an hour-long night session of the National Assembly, as the lower house of parliament is known in the country.

The amendment clarifies that the chief justice of the Supreme Court will now be chosen by a parliamentary committee and will have a fixed term of three years.

Since the general elections in February this year were marred by allegations of rigging, relations have deteriorated between the government and the highest court, with several court rulings backing Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party ( PTI).

The amendment came just days before the retirement of Supreme Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa. Under the previous law, Isa would have been replaced by the longest-serving judge, Mansoor Ali Shah, who consistently delivered verdicts found favorable to Khan and the PTI.

New groups of senior judges will also be created to weigh exclusively on constitutional issues, an issue that was at the heart of recent disputes between the government and the PTI at the Supreme Court.

As the bill was passed in a pre-dawn session, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said it was a historic day asserting the supremacy of Parliament.

Today's amendment, the 26th, is not just an amendment, but an example of national solidarity and consensus. A new sun will rise and emanate throughout the country, Sharif said.

His party, the Muslim League-Nawaz, mustered a two-thirds majority in favor of the bill, with the support of its longtime rival-turned-partner, the Pakistan People's Party. Some rebel PTI MPs also voted for the reform.

Stifling a free justice system

But leaders of the PTI, the largest bloc in Parliament, hit back at the amendments.

These amendments amount to stifling a free judicial system. They do not represent the people of Pakistan, said PTI Omar Ayub Khan, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. A fraudulently formed government cannot amend the constitution.

Analyst Bilal Gilani, who heads Pakistan's main polling agency, said the amendments bring some benefits, including balancing the activism of the judiciary. A more sinister aspect of the amendment creates a justice system more flexible to government concerns, he added.

On Monday, the national newspaper Dawn predicted that the law could intensify confrontation between the branches of state. Given long-standing feuds and divisions, the changes could trigger a new standoff between the legal community and the government, an editorial read.

In July, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that the Election Commission of Pakistan should not have marginalized Khan's party in the election campaign by forcing its MPs to run as independents due to a technical violation. It also granted the PTI a number of unelected seats for women and religious minorities, which would give Khan's party the largest number of parliamentarians.

Other courts have also overturned Khan's personal convictions or sentences. Earlier this year, six judges of Pakistan's High Court accused the country's intelligence services of intimidating and coercing them in politically important cases.

Khan remains extremely popular and continues to challenge the establishment with frequent protests, although he languishes in prison on charges he says are politically motivated. He was removed from power in a vote of no confidence in 2022 after analysts said he had fallen out of favor with the generals.

He has led a campaign of defiance against the military, a major red line in a country that has seen decades of military rule and faced a harsh crackdown on its leaders and supporters.

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