A number of well-known former lawmakers and a former president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association filed two distinct but related petitions in the Supreme Court on Friday, contesting the 26th Amendment on the grounds that “a vote cast under coercion is no vote at all.”
The 26th Constitutional Amendment Bill, sometimes referred to as the Constitutional Package, was approved by both chambers of parliament and became law on October 20, marking the end of a month-long political negotiation.
The recently passed amendment has changed the judiciary in many ways, including removing the Supreme Court’s suo motu authority and giving lawmakers the authority to choose Pakistan’s next chief justice from among the three most senior Supreme Court judges.
The Balochistan National Party—Mengal (BNP-M) president and former chief minister Akhtar Mengal, former National Assembly speaker Fahmida Mirza, former MNA Mohsin Dawar, who is also the National Democratic Movement (NDM) chairman, and former senator and prime minister’s human rights adviser Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar jointly filed one of the petitions on Friday.
Salauddin Ahmed, an attorney and former president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, submitted the other plea.
The 26th Constitutional Amendment was challenged in both petitions on two grounds: first, that “certain provisions of the said Act fundamentally compromise essential features of the Constitution relating to [the] integrity of the judiciary and trichotomy of powers,” and second, that the way the amendment was approved was problematic.
The highest court was asked in both petitions to rule that the amendment was approved “contrary to the Constitution and law.” and is not enforceable.
The court was asked to “set aside the proceedings, acts, decisions, and directions of the so-called Judicial Commission meeting” that took place on November 5 in Ahmed’s petition.
