Nimat Ullah Bashar 

When robes turn into files and justice bows to procedure, the court becomes just another office but not a sanctuary for the oppressed. The 27th Amendment would be a testament to the Bureaucratisation of the judiciary in Pakistan.

Pakistan currently finds itself at another constitutional juncture. Just under a year after Parliament adopted the controversial Twenty-Sixth Amendment—a legislative package that has already altered judicial appointments, curtailed suo motu authorities, and made other transformative institutional changes —leaders of the ruling coalition are publicly crafting a Twenty-Seventh Amendment. Reports say that high-level consultations have taken place between leaders of the PML-N and the PPP, and that many of the features under consideration would modify centre-province relations, re-establish judicial administration, and allow executive authorities greater scope. I outline below why the proposed 27th Amendment should alarm democrats, proponents of provincial rights, and legal purists: it exacerbates the legal irregularities introduced by the 26th, heightens provincial resentment, entrenches conflicts within and between national parties, and threatens institutional corporate capture driven by short-term expediency.

Legal Irregularities and Concerns for the Rule of Law

The 26th Amendment has already changed fundamental checks and balances, it altered the means of judicial appointments, limited the courts’ suo motu jurisdiction, and allowed Parliament a significant role in the naming of the Chief Justice. International legal organisations, along with many legal scholars, viewed those changes as a significant blow to the judiciary's independence.

The 27th is expected to follow the same direction. Early reports cite ideas such as the Constitutional Court, an expanded executive magistracy, transfers of judges, and amending the safeguards for provincial fiscal shares. If this happens (or, more accurately, if any amendments happen) without clear debating and constitutional discipline, we suspect this will provoke at least three legal red flags:

Process of Hasty. The 26th was passed during a special extended parliament session that, critics allege, was facilitated by coercive techniques, and replicating a truncated and partisan process to amend it for the 27th would reinforce exactly the procedural illegitimacy against which many lawyers warned only yesterday.

Concentrated Appointment Authority. Further institutional designs that allow political organs to control the composition of judicial institutions in general, or to appoint parallel constitutional benches, risk political capture of adjudication altogether. The actual separation of powers requires insulation of authority in judicial appointments from temporary and political majorities; the passage of the 26th weakened that insulation. Another move to strengthen the political organ's authority over judicial appointments could make restoration impossible altogether.

Constitutional Disarray. Doing things by fitful amendment to evolve courts, move judges, change the judiciary’s powers, etc., without harmonising procedural law and providing extra safeguards will embed a new level of legal uncertainty that will constantly be litigated. Given the uncertainty, it poses a governance hazard to predictable remedies and is open to covert executive authority. If lawmakers genuinely want to make reform, then the legislative path must be deliberative: with drafts published, work in a committee that includes members from both parties, engage with the provinces and bar associations, and provide sufficient time for judicial and civil society engagement. If the process does not focus on deliberation, it is an invitation to institutional resilience failure.

Provincial issues and the centre-periphery imbalance:

One of the most sensitive fault lines in Pakistan’s constitutional order centres on fiscal and administrative federalism. Reports that the 27th will consider amending or removing protected rights to the provincial share in the National Finance Commission (NFC) allocations should be regarded as especially alarming. Provincial autonomy is already precarious; changing guaranteed fiscal shares without the provinces' consent will be viewed as budgetary centralisation that would deepen alienation, especially in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Nationalist parties and provincial leaders have long argued that constitutional tinkering from the centre, without dialogue on genuine power-sharing, promotes separatism and diminishes state capacity. The 26th provided a contemporary example: many actors identified it as a centre-led project to restructure institutions in a manner that advantages the dominant coalition. The 27th, especially if it modifies NFC protections, expands governors' powers, or eliminates judges' remedies in provincial matters, will only worsen grievances and provoke a constitutional backlash from the provinces.

Political conflict: PML-N, PPP and the downgraded climate of trust

The two parties publicly present the 27th as a coalition effort. Reporting has featured PML-N delegations asking for support and consensus from PPP. Nevertheless, this political logic remains fragile. The two parties have a considerable overlap in their constituencies and a mutual history of transactional politics as competitive partners. Any proposed changes to the constitution that seem to substantively protect and/or extend the parties' short-term political advantage will be met with opposition from opposition parties and fellow coalition members, unconsciously cementing distrust among coalition members and among the multitude of forces present and expressed within it.

While both distrust and competition remain at play, two aspects should be highlighted. First, any constitutional amendments designed to insulate the PML-N or PPP over the judiciary, bureaucracy, or provincial revenues will create incentives for subsequent retaliatory action when the political numbers shift. Second, the coalition risks implicating both parties in the legal and reputational fallout that can follow from the unpopularity of their constitutional engineering, thus binding them together. To summarise: coalition convenience can now become a reputational and institutional liability.

Nationalist parties: anticipated complaints, valid cautions

Ethnic-nationalist political parties in Balochistan and Sindh have already seen the 26th number as an illustration of the country moving away from provincial rights and local remedies. The 27th will pass through their scrutiny and likely opposition. Their complaints are not simply parties in factional politics but are deeply ingrained in their historical demands centred on resource control, equitable development and respect for the Constitution. Amendments that implicate fiscal shares, delegate powers or the function of provincial institutions will be interpreted within this context and trigger spheres of political protest and potentially litigation.

Disregarding these valid provincial perspectives is fundamentally to ignore the logic of federation. For the Constitution to remain durable, provinces must feel their core interests have been guaranteed, not just placated in the negotiable line items of a centre-produced deal.

Why adhering to the script of the 26th would be a disaster

The rule of law established by the 26th set a precedent: government can re-engineer the constitution on a significant scale without a public referendum if the judiciary is discounted. That precedent is the real challenge: the benefit of another constitutional change will be, at best, a tactical political win; the cost to the nation will be instability.

The decay of trust in our institutions. The public and lawyers are already claiming that the 26th damaged the independence of the judiciary; the more damage, the less public trust in the courts and in Parliament.

Policy instability. Ambiguous amendments coiled within the amendments will create litigation that will drive the average Canadian insane; this ambiguous space will place a massive burden on the judiciary for years to come and curtail modern policymaking.

Political divisiveness. Constitutional change without cross-societal consensus will not resolve issues; it will increase the risks of every political action and motivate extra-constitutional functions.

Constitutional documents should not be used as electoral tools. Instead, they serve as the permanent framework of a constitution that survives governments, protects minority and provincial rights, and facilitates the separation of powers. The way that the 27th Amendment is being framed threatens to exacerbate politicized constitutionalism that was first initiated by the 26th. Strikingly, politicized constitutionalism is substantively eroding judicial independence, intensifying provinces' sense of grievance, and embedding immediate political self-interest into the most enduring legal document in the country. 

If reform is to take place—and there are credible grounds for some institutional reform—then this must be done in public: sharing the draft with the public, engaging provincial governments and bar associations, allowing parliamentary committees to discuss amendments in public, and building as broad a political consensus as possible. Any rush will not be remembered as constitutional advancement but constitutional capture.

Pakistan needs clarity in its laws, provincial justice, and institutional independence, not yet another hurried constitutional amendment that might alleviate today's political problem while creating a new constitutional crisis tomorrow.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of The Himalayan Research Institute Pakistan - (THRIP)

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Niamat Ullah Bashar is a law student at Government College University, Lahore.