ISLAMABAD:
Former Supreme Court Justice Mansoor Ali Shah has raised serious questions over what he described as the inability of sitting Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi to defend the independence of the judiciary, arguing that a moment that called for institutional opposition was instead met with silence and accommodation.
In his recent speech at the Schell Center for International Human Rights, Yale Law School on April 10, Justice retired Mansoor Ali Shah said that at a moment when the dignity of the court demanded principled resistance, the sitting chief justice “offered none”.
He further lamented that the CJ approved the change and only negotiated for the preservation of his own position and title. “The silence of my colleagues was its own judgment. No collective statement. No denial. No act of professional solidarity.”
The former judge also pointed to developments following the Sunni Ittehad Council case, noting that the SC had ruled that independent candidates affiliated to the opposition were entitled to reserved seats, a decision that would have deprived the ruling coalition of a two-thirds constitutional majority.
He said the government refused to implement the ruling and moved to prevent similar rulings in the future.
Shah stated that the 26th Amendment, passed in October 2024, restructured the Judicial Commission of Pakistan by reducing judicial members and increasing political and executive representation to a majority of eight out of thirteen.
He added that it also ended the seniority-based appointment of the chief justice, giving a parliamentary committee the power to choose from among the top three judges.
“No criteria were prescribed. No justification was required.”
The panel of three changes what a judge must be to become a CJ. Under the seniority convention, a judge had no incentive to cultivate executive favor; the position was determined by an objective rule. The panel converts the judging championship into a competition.
The committee will favor the candidate least likely to cause institutional discomfort, whose record suggests accommodation rather than independence, whose jurisprudence signals cooperation rather than opposition. “This creates a backward incentive that shapes judicial behavior years before the time of appointment.”
Despite those concerns, Judge Shah said he initially chose to remain in the system.
However, Justice Shah said he chose to stay because there was a sliver of hope that the SC would rise as a full court to examine the amendment and regain its constitutional role. “I trusted that institutional sanity and constitutional morality would prevail.”
He said the 27th Amendment, passed in November 2025, completed “a dismantling of the existing judicial structure” by creating the Federal Constitutional Court above the SC, while stripping the latter of its constitutional jurisdiction and reducing it to an appellate role.
Shah states that the 27th change came in November 2025 and completed the dismantling. It created above the SC a new FCC composed of judges curated under the new executive-controlled appointment process. The SC that remained was stripped of constitutional jurisdiction, reduced to an appellate shell. The amendment introduced the power to transfer Supreme Court judges across provinces without their consent, a mechanism for purging independent jurists.
He further elaborated on the implications of the change.
“The 27th Amendment not only stripped the Supreme Court of constitutional jurisdiction. It created above it a new federal constitutional court, composed of judges curated under the executive-controlled appointment process, and equipped that court with the power to abdicate 78 years of Supreme Court jurisdiction, having merely exercised its conviction power in the early days. declared that Supreme Court precedents—all the total constitutional judgment from independence to the present – not binding It may not be the FCC’s choice that is indiscernible, made by two judges whose appointments were controlled by the government whose constitutional amendment was drafted.
