A Supreme Court without a soul

Many people think that the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment would hurt the independence of the judiciary. Critics say that the Supreme Court can’t be split in half or put under the control of the proposed Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), whose first chief judge would be chosen by the executive.

A former attorney general for Pakistan said that the FCC “could not have been created in the manner as proposed,” warning that this would open a Pandora’s box for the country’s constitutional framework.

He said that the prime minister could choose any SC judge to be the FCC’s chief justice.

He said that moving high court judges without their permission could lead to serious abuse and could be used to go after judges who think for themselves.

He also said that if a senior SC judge didn’t want to work under a junior judge who was appointed as the FCC chief justice, they would be considered retired as a SC judge. He said that this forced move to a questionable court in the middle of his career was a serious blow to the independence of the judiciary.

Legal experts say that the FCC would effectively be in charge of the top court, which is currently the highest court in the country. The FCC’s legitimacy would still be in doubt for a number of reasons.

One of these is whether the current parliament really represents the will of the people.

Advocate Akram Sheikh told the Constitutional Bench during hearings on the 26th Amendment case that the amendment was “brought just to avoid the accountability of the February 8 general election.”

Other worries include the reserved seats case, in which the government got a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly after the ruling, and the fact that challenges to the 26th Amendment have not been heard in a year.

It looks like four people are being looked at as possible candidates for the job of FCC Chief Justice: Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar.

According to Advocate Abdul Moiz Jaferii, the move was “an illegitimate government tampering with our social contract to allow for its capture of power to continue.”