LAHORE: The 26th and 27th amendments were not made in isolation and will be followed by more changes to the Constitution, speakers said during a session titled “Contextualizing the 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments” on Sunday.
They were speaking at the 6th Asma Jahangir Conference organised by the Asma Jahangir Legal Aid Cell (AGHS) in collaboration with the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Pakistan Bar Council on Saturday.
The session was moderated by Reema Omer, International Commission of Jurists Senior Legal Adviser, and panelists included Justice Ali Baqar Najafi of Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani, former judge of the Federal Shariat Court, Irfan Qadir, former Attorney-General for Pakistan, Senator Kamran Murtaza and Dr Maryam Shahid Khan, research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives.
Discussing the context in which the two amendments took place, moderator Reema Omer opened the discussing by pointing out the clear division in the country and said some people see it an attack on the freedom of the judiciary, whereas others believe that the amendments were needed because the judiciary had deviated from its constitutional role.
Speaking about the need for the constitutional court, Justice Najafi said there were causes and effects for every event. He said the court was not unique to Pakistan and there were courts in other parts of the world that exclusively deal with constitutional interpretation. He listed as many as 10 factors for the creation of the court. He said that judicial overreach, judicial activism leading to interpretation of the constitution extending into executive’s domain, interference in policies without expert opinion, decisions based on subjective perception rather than objective law, interference in executive functioning, bypassing primary institutions and departments, double standards in interpretation of case for different parties and challenging the writ of the state.
Detailing the background in which the constitutional court was formed, Senator Murtaza said that these amendments had a background and political parties and citizens had grievances with the judiciary. He said political parties had agreement regarding the formation of the constitutional court and at some stage, Imran Khan also agreed with its creation. He said his party and others resisted to some clauses of the 26th Amendment and wanted the formation of constitutional benches instead of a separate court formed on the seniority of the judges. However, he said they agreed to the suggestion made by the PPP that all provinces should be represented in this new court.
He said after the passage of the 27th Amendment, the 1973 Constitution was no longer a unanimously agreed upon constitution. He said, “Before the amendments, we were on one extreme and after their passage, the country is now on another extreme. When will we be able to find a middle ground? The judiciary wasn’t ideal then and it isn’t ideal now”.
Speaking about the lack of deliberations on the amendments, Mr Qadir called the time a “war-like” situation. He said during martial laws, deliberations were done and cited the example of the 8th Amendment which took three months. He said the 27th Amendment was not absolute and more amendments would come. He recalled several instances when the judiciary sent the democratically elected prime ministers packing and said that “like-minded” judges were controlling the entire judiciary.
Dr Ranjha questioned the life-long immunity of individuals and said it was neither legal, nor constitutional or Islamic. He said one bad amendment contaminates the whole constitution. He said the biggest flaw in the judicial system was delays and asked to what extent this issue had been resolved.
Other speakers discussed the various legal, ethical and historic factors leading to the amendments.
Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2026
