Pakistan’s judiciary stands at a perilous crossroads, its independence under siege from a coordinated campaign of constitutional engineering, political interference, and institutional retaliation. The passage of the 26th Constitutional Amendment and the Supreme Court’s reversal of its own landmark ruling on military trials have exposed a deeper crisis, one not merely of legal interpretation, but of existential consequence. The question now is whether Pakistan’s courts can continue to function as guardians of the law, or whether they will be reduced to instruments of control, hollowed out by the very forces they were meant to check.
The unraveling began with the events of 9 May 2023, when mass protests erupted across the country following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. In response, thousands of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters were detained, many of them civilians charged under military laws. The Supreme Court’s October 2023 judgment, which declared such trials unconstitutional, was a rare assertion of judicial autonomy. It reaffirmed the boundary between military and civilian jurisdictions and signaled a willingness to confront entrenched power. But this assertion was short-lived. The military establishment, perceiving the ruling as a direct threat to its authority, responded not with legal argument but with structural retaliation.
On 21 October 2024, the 26th Constitutional Amendment was enacted, reshaping the judicial landscape with surgical precision. It introduced two seismic changes. First, it established a Special Parliamentary Committee, dominated by political actors, to appoint the Chief Justice of Pakistan. This move dismantled the traditional seniority-based elevation system, widely seen as a maneuver to block the rise of judges who had previously ruled against military overreach. Second, the amendment reconfigured the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP), tilting its composition in favor of the executive and legislature. The JCP was also tasked with appointing members to a newly formed Constitutional Bench, now the sole authority on constitutional matters. What was framed as technocratic reform was, in reality, a calculated effort to neutralize judicial dissent and consolidate control.
The implications of these changes are profound. Santiago Canton, Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists, warned that the amendments introduce “an extraordinary level of political influence over judicial appointments and administration,” eroding the judiciary’s ability to act as a check on state excesses and protect human rights. The process itself was emblematic of the disregard for democratic norms: draft amendments were kept secret, no public consultations were held, and Parliament passed the legislation without meaningful debate. The principle of participatory lawmaking, a cornerstone of democratic governance, was flagrantly violated.
The consequences were swift. On 7 May 2025, the newly constituted Constitutional Bench delivered its first ruling, overturning the October 2023 judgment and reinstating clauses of the Pakistan Army Act that permit military trials of civilians. The decision was justified on national security grounds, citing attacks on military installations. But this rationale conflated dissent with terrorism and bypassed the safeguards of civilian legal processes. It marked not only a reversal of precedent but a dangerous endorsement of military jurisdiction over civilian affairs. The Bench’s ruling set a precedent that threatens to dismantle constitutional protections and normalize emergency powers as tools of routine governance.
Within the judiciary, resistance simmers but fractures deepen. The Supreme Court has become a battleground, with justices clashing over internal rules, bench compositions, and the legitimacy of the 26th Amendment. Justice Athar Minallah described Pakistan’s judicial history as “a dictatorship dressed up,” while Justice Babar Sattar warned of “administrative puppetry.” Four justices boycotted a full-court meeting they viewed as a rubber-stamp exercise. The judiciary, once a pillar of democratic resilience, now teeters on the edge of irrelevance.
Meanwhile, the broader legal environment is being weaponized to suppress dissent. Cases pending before the Constitutional Bench include judicial transfers, used to engineer favorable majorities, reversals of reserved seat rulings, and restrictions on digital speech. Internet shutdowns, cybercrime prosecutions, and social media bans have become standard tools of repression. Families of the disappeared, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are now being prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws for peacefully protesting enforced disappearances. The legal system, once a shield for rights, is being repurposed to silence opposition.
This transformation is not accidental, it is systemic. The Bench is emerging as a judicial shield for authoritarianism, cloaking repression in the language of constitutionalism and sanitizing rights violations through procedural legitimacy. Its validation of military courts has dulled the legal system’s defenses and numbed public resistance to authoritarian drift. Independence is no longer under threat, it is being actively dismantled.
Pakistan’s judiciary is fighting a battle for its soul. Whether it can withstand the pressure or succumb to institutional capture will determine not only the fate of legal autonomy but the future of democratic governance itself. The stakes are no longer confined to courtrooms, they extend to every citizen who relies on the rule of law as a bulwark against tyranny. The question is not whether independence is under attack. It is whether it can survive.