From its infancy, Pakistan’s judiciary has consistently chosen its master and it has never been the people. The pattern was set before the ink on our first constitution was dry. In the Maulvi Tameezuddin case, when the people’s Constituent Assembly was dissolved, Justice Munir didn’t stand with democracy, he crafted the poisonous ”doctrine of necessity” to side with the powerful. Parliament? Dismissed. Constitution? Trampled. The precedent was set: in Pakistan, black robes would bow to powerful.
Then came 1958. General Ayub Khan declared martial law, and the Supreme Court, in the Dosso case, did not hesitate to glorify it. In the Dosso case, the court invoked Hans Kelsen’s legal theory. A “bloodless revolution,” they said, as if sidelining Parliament and legitimizing military rule was a noble act. *Since when do judges become philosophers of revolution?
The betrayal deepened under Zia’s iron fist. It took the iron fist of Zia-ul-Haq to deepen the wound. When Nusrat Bhutto dared to challenge his martial law, the Supreme Court rigged the very bench and upheld the dictatorship, again hiding behind the doctrine of necessity And then, the ultimate crime, the judicial murder of a democratically elected Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Decades later, the Supreme Court itself would admit this was a gross miscarriage of justice, a trial that ”didn’t follow due process.” The courtrooms, our temples of justice, were transformed into instruments of political terror.
The pattern repeated with brutal consistency. When Musharraf seized power in 1999, the Supreme Court once again waved the magic wand of ”state necessity,” blessing another coup as ”extra-constitutional but justified.
Then, it emerged a new, more sophisticated era of judicial coup-making. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, restored by the Lawyers’ Movement but whose restoration was quietly engineered by General Kayani, didn’t empower democracy, he declared war on it. His court systematically dismantled the PPP government, first convicting and disqualifying Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, then hounding his successor Raja Pervez Ashraf through endless hearings. When did our courts become political executioners, empowered to topple elected governments at will?
The hypocrisy was breathtaking. While persecuting PPP leaders, the same court under Chaudhry gave a free pass to PML-N in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case, a clear case of judicial favoritism that exposed the court’s political alignments for all to see.
And the sanctity Parliament? With the 19th Amendment, they were persuaded to stab themselves in the back, granting the judiciary powers they could no longer check , a blunder the PML-N would later admit. We created a class of political judges who believed they were above the constitution, above the people, and above accountability.Their suo moto was a tool of hyperjudicialisation .From setting samosa prices to toppling prime ministers, the judiciary transformed itself into an unelected power center. While Pakistan’s justice system is ranked worse.
But the judiciary’s hunger for power knew no party lines. When PML-N itself came to power, the court turned on its former beneficiaries. The Panama Papers became the pretext for the political destruction of Nawaz Sharif. In this verdict, the Supreme Court didn’t just interpret the law. It rewrote the constitution, weaponizing Zia’s vague Article 62(1)(f) into a permanent disqualification clause. Who anointed these judges as high priests of morality, empowered to banish elected leaders for life?
History will remember only one Judge Faiz Essa who empowered Parliament rather than empowring himself as a Judicial Dictator.
While discussing judges who trampled the constitution, it would be unfair not to discuss
Justice Qazi Faez Isa, an exception.
He represents the road not taken. When Parliament passed the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023 to curb the chief justice’s dictatorial powers, Justice Isa didn’t cling to his authority, he surrendered it to Parliament’s wisdom. While other judges resisted this check on their power, Justice Isa stood firm: the judiciary serves the constitution, not its own ambition. He proved that a judge can stand with democracy rather than against it.
This is why the reversal of the 19th Amendment proposed in the 27th Amendment is not a threat; it is a necessity. Judges must be accountable to Parliament. Constitutional courts must be separate from the Supreme Court so that high-profile cases do not overshadow the urgent needs of the people. The idea of a separate constitutional court was also presented in the “Charter of Democracy” signed by both major political powers of that time. So, the idea of a proposed constitutional court must be supported because of the major democratic development Charter of Democracy too. All developed countries have constitutional courts. These judges in SC actually love to hear high profile Constitutional cases rather than dealing public cases. Anyone claiming this will “weaken the judiciary” should first look at history: coups legitimized, elected leaders disqualified, judicial murders sanctioned, hyperjudicialization normalized, and the 19th Amendment admitted as a mistake. How can we trust an institution that has repeatedly legitimized dictatorships? That has disqualified prime ministers from Gilani to Sharif? That has weaponized vague constitutional clauses against elected leaders?
The 27th Amendment will create the accountability the judiciary has evaded for decades.It will separate constitutional courts from the Supreme Court’s political games. It will ensure judges’ answer to Parliament, the only institution that represents all Pakistanis.
The people of Pakistan don’t need a judiciary that serves the powerful. They need a judiciary that serves justice. They don’t need black-robed dictators. They need constitutional guardians.
All judges must be accountable to Parliament. Until judges answer to the People’s House, our constitution will remain a document the powerful use against us, our democracy will remain a convenient fiction, and our judiciary will be remembered not as defenders of justice, but as its most accomplished betrayers.
