Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Senator Syed Ali Zafar. PHOTO: X/@SyedAliZafar1
ISLAMABAD:
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) announced on Saturday that it would not participate in the process of tabling or passing the 27th constitutional amendment, terming it a “pre-decided and non-transparent exercise”.
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament House alongside opposition leaders, Senator Ali Zafar said the government had submitted a draft containing 50 proposed amendments to the constitution.
“These changes are being made in secret,” he said, adding that the opposition had been asked to present its position to the standing committee.
“We haven’t even read a single word of it – how could we stand before the committee?” Senator Zafar asked.
He said the 18th amendment was passed after extensive consultations over a year, contrasting it with what he called a “staged drama” around the 27th.
Zafar warned that the proposed amendments sought to grant presidential immunity for life and would abolish Article 184, under which the Supreme Court exercises its original jurisdiction to enforce fundamental rights.
“The spirit of the 1973 constitution is being changed,” he noted. “Through these changes, the Supreme Court is being dismantled. It would be reduced to a simple court of appeals.”
He declared that the PTI “would not become part of any conspiracy against the Constitution.”
Echoing similar concerns, Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) leader Senator Allama Raja Nasir Abbas described the proposals as “an attack on the integrity of Pakistan’s constitution”.
He recalled that the 18th Amendment was passed through national consensus, while members were “coerced and threatened” during the passage of the 26th.
“This parliament does not represent the people of Pakistan,” he said, warning that the new amendment “will end the status of parliament itself.”
PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said in a post on X that the proposed amendment was a “trick to enslave us”.
“To subject the Supreme Court to a new court whose judges will be the favorites of the current Form 47 government is to turn the legal system into an instrument of coercion,” he wrote.
