The Kathmandu Post’s May 14 opinion column reviews the cumulative damage that the 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments — pushed through Pakistan’s parliament by political and military elites — have done to judicial independence. The piece details how the amendments empower a Special Parliamentary Committee to choose the Chief Justice, create a new Federal Constitutional …
Reporting on the recently enacted Twenty-Seventh Constitutional Amendment (May 1, 2026), the article details how Pakistan’s parliament has restructured the judiciary in ways that the International Commission of Jurists has called “a flagrant attack on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.” The amendment creates a new Federal Constitutional Court whose members …
UN human rights experts issued an urgent appeal on April 2, 2026, demanding Pakistan immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Idris Khattak, who has been detained for over six years following his enforced disappearance in November 2019. Khattak, whose detention was ruled arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in November 2025, …
Rahat Imran and Imran Munir. “Defying Marginalization: Emergence of Women’s Organizations and the Resistance Movement in Pakistan: A Historical Overview.” Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 19, no. 6 (2018): 132-156. This article examines the rise of feminist legal and political resistance in Pakistan during and after General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime (1977–1988), a period marked by …
Pakistani authorities arrested human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, advocate Hadi Ali Chattha, while they were traveling to a court hearing in Islamabad. The arrests, reportedly carried out with force and without presenting warrants on-site, have sparked widespread condemnation from legal associations, human rights groups, and civil society. Bar councils across Pakistan …
Kureshi, Y. (2022). Seeking supremacy: The pursuit of judicial power in Pakistan. Cambridge University Press. The emergence of the judiciary as an assertive and confrontational center of power has been the most consequential new feature of Pakistan’s political system. This book maps out the evolution of the relationship between the judiciary and military in Pakistan, explaining …
Kureshi, Yasser. To Reinforce or Replace: Courts and Democratic Backsliding (2025). Government & Opposition. doi:10.1017/gov.2025.10015. Courts are often seen as defenders of democracy, but this article shows that empowered judiciaries can also enable democratic backsliding. Kureshi develops a framework distinguishing courts that reinforce political representation from those that replace elected institutions when fighting corruption. Through …
A deadly terrorist assault on the district and sessions courts complex in Islamabad’s G-11 sector has triggered a national outcry from Pakistan’s legal community. The attack, which killed multiple people and injured dozens—including lawyers and court staff—exposed severe lapses in security at what should have been a high-protection judicial site. The Islamabad Bar Council (IBC) …
Pakistan’s parliament has passed a sweeping constitutional amendment that expands the powers of the military and sharply reduces the authority of the Supreme Court — a move critics warn will cause lasting damage to the country’s democracy. The amendment elevates Army Chief Asim Munir to a new position, Chief of Defence Forces, giving him formal …
Shoaib A Ghias, “Miscarriage of Chief Justice: Judicial Power and the Legal Complex in Pakistan under Musharraf.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 35, no. 4 (2010): 985–1022. Summary: This article explores the struggle for judicial power in Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf focusing on two questions. First, how did pro‐Musharraf regime judges expand judicial power, leading …