Pakistan’s government has passed a controversial amendment to the constitution that has been accused of weakening the power and independence of the judiciary, throwing the country’s democracy into further crisis.
The 26th constitutional amendment was passed in a clandestine, late-night parliamentary session that was clouded in secrecy and marred by allegations of abductions and intimidation of parliamentarians to force them to vote in favour of the bill.
The ruling coalition government had lobbied intensely for the amendment, which changes the process of senior judicial appointments and, most significantly, gives the ruling government the power to select the chief justice, the country’s top judge who is regularly the final arbiter of Pakistan’s most politically significant cases.
In a statement, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), said the amendment was a “blow to judicial independence, the rule of law, and human rights protection”.
The coalition government, comprises the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan’s People’s party, and is led by the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. It had attempted to push the amendment through last month but lacked a majority in the national assembly.
This time round, it managed to get the votes necessary but the opposition parties had accused the government of “arm twisting”, including offering substantial bribes to MPs as well as abducting, torturing and harassing them to give them the numbers.
The coalition government came to power in February in an election that was tainted with widespread allegations of rigging and documented evidence of electoral fraud against the party of former prime minister Imran Khan, who is currently in jail. The ruling government is accused of having the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, who are long accused of meddling in the country’s political affairs.
The new constitutional amendment comes amid government fears that the new chief justice of the supreme court, who is due to take office this month, would open an investigation into the alleged rigging of February’s election. Since the elections were held, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has been holding protests, calling for the court to take up the allegations of election fraud. They vowed to hold mass protests in the wake of the amendment.
Salman Akram Raja, the PTI’s general secretary, said the new rules were to ensure that the country’s most senior judges were beholden to the government’s agenda and would not grant any relief to Khan or PTI in the mounting number of cases they are currently fighting. “Everything will be decided by judges handpicked by the government,” he said.
Raja alleged that the “establishment”, a common reference to the military, were the ones behind the amendment. He cited a recent incident where six senior judges went public with allegations they had been intimidated and put under pressure by the establishment not to give favourable court verdicts in Khan’s cases. “This is the end of judicial independence,” he said.
However, the allegations were denied by the law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, who said that the parliamentary committee who will select the chief justice will have “representation of all major parties” including opposition parties, so appointments would not be politically motivated. “The amendments are constitutional,” he said.
There were already long-running questions about the independence of Pakistan’s judiciary, which has historically been accused of being co-opted to serve the military’s agenda. However, it has also stood up for human rights issues and media freedom.
In recent months, the supreme court has also given several favourable orders to Khan, who has been in jail for over a year and is facing upwards of 100 cases, to the displeasure of the ruling coalition, who have deemed Khan a “terrorist”.
Lawyers and experts said that with this new bill, government interference into the justice system was now brazenly enshrined in the constitution. Salahuddin Ahmed, a senior lawyer, said the new amendments “permanently puts the supreme court and high courts under the thumb of politicians”.
He added: “This moves Pakistan decisively towards an authoritarian state and destroys the essence of judicial review.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pakistan’s former prime minister, called it a “subjugation of the judiciary by the government. It simply means that if a judge does not cooperate with the government, he will be kicked out,” he said.
