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Islamabad Diary

Egregious to Magna Carta!

The 26th Amendment, which had put the executive at the vanguard, has led to the pruning of the judiciary’s independence.

By Ishtiaq Ali Mehkri | October 2025

For many, it is an egregious state of affairs in the judiciary, but there isn’t any dearth of people who see all is well in the Republic. It reminds me of a comment from Justice Sachin Dutta of the Delhi High Court, who said, “Something which is of interest to the public is quite different from something which is in public interest”. I am reading the judicial crisscross in the federal capital on these lines, and dumbstruck at assuming where it is heading.

The beginning of the judicial new-year in September has come with a bang, and it is a writing on the wall that Brother Judges are at loggerheads. The 26th Amendment, which had put the executive at the vanguard, has led to the pruning of the judiciary’s independence—rather a subtle compromise -- and this is where the debate rests as to how sooner and articulately the superior judiciary will rehabilitate its image as the custodian of the Constitution and defender of fundamental rights?

A plethora of dissent letters to the Chief Justice of Pakistan from the puisne judge, and the Islamabad High Court judges, are a grim reminder of the fact that public interest litigations are being ignored. They all have talked of ‘judicial ills’ and are in need of being addressed without any bias, per se. Likewise, the insertion of a parallel court in the form of a Constitutional Bench has become a bone of contention and solicits an earnest judicial review. This is in addition to staple complaints from none other than the judges that they are not on their own and are in an “aura of intimidation.”

My Lord, Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, you have a responsibility to dispense, and you can do it in a commendable manner by reinvigorating a new spirit of unanimity. All that is desired is to meticulously adhere to the Constitution; implement the Practice & Procedure Act, 2023, in an organic manner; convene a full court -- sans judges elevated under the impugned amendment -- to hear the 26th Amendment; and let petitions of immense public interest surface on the cause list, especially those pertaining to 2024 General Elections and trials and tribulations in the civil-military tangle.

A judicial course-correction is indispensable, and the superior judiciary shall be well-advised to do it on its own, in order to reinstate its effigy. Pakistan is in dire need of judicial activism, one that is institutionally driven and not stage-managed, with the explicit aim to enhance transparency and efficiency in judicial proceedings. Let the “living document” that the Chief Justice prides in by virtue of his new modus operandi of “seeking individual opinions of judges” become a treatise of unanimity.

This auto-correction through the rule of law will act as a prerequisite for ushering in political stability at a time when the region is imploding with civil unrest. It was soothing to hear the Chief Justice vowing to “safeguard the dignity of judges and judicial officers”, and it was mentioned that even if a magistrate in Gwadar (1800 km away from Islamabad) is in need of ‘assistance,’ the top court will come to his/her rescue.

Honourable Lord, it’s time to walk the talk! Humbly submitted that a few yards away from your Lawful Bastille sits a High Court, and your learned brethren over there are crying foul, engrossed in pain and remorse! They, too, are in need of being heard.


My Lord, your prologue at the Judicial Conference was a ray of hope for innumerable people as you talked of “seriously considering a mechanism to ensure the production of detained persons.” You have won millions of hearts, especially those in the “peripheries,” wandering for their missing loved ones, and those who are fingers-crossed on their habeas corpus petitions’ fate.

Honourable Chief Justice, you rightly talked of reforms by modernizing the courts on the lines of technology, and you outlined five principles, such as speedy delivery of justice through technology; to improve access and transparency; to strengthen the regulatory framework, etc. Certainly, that is the way to go as more than two million cases are pending countrywide, and most of them pertain to district-level arbitration, apart from around 57,000 litigations under your domain at the seat of the judiciary.

My Lord, your disquisition was on the mark but more than being stressed out on methodology, it’s time something basic is done to resuscitate the confidence of the masses in judiciary, which is at the lowest ebb. Though we have a history of crests and troughs from acceding to “doctrine of necessity” to self-esteemed stances such as the 2007 lawyers’ movement, we have unfortunately come down on knees.

It’s time we eulogize and resurrect role models such as Justice A.R. Cornelius and Justice Dorab Patel, and not to be inundated with those who validated coups and legalized extra-constitutional legislations. Cornelius’ contention was that the “majesty of law rests in its ability to limit the powerful, and not to serve them.”

It is a foregone conclusion that injustice has been done to the nation, the Constitution, and your very institution. Our inviolable pride should be the supremacy of the Constitution and, subsequently, the protection of fundamental rights of every citizen. That is what your legacy should be, My Lord Justice, as Pakistan’s Magna Carta! One wonders, if there are any listeners in the alleys of our judiciary!

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