A CONSTITUTION AT A CROSSROADS: THE TWENTY-SEVENTH AMENDMENT AND THE EROSION OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AND FEDERALISM

Abstract

The twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan marks a radical shift in the country’s constitutional architecture. By creating a new Federal Constitutional Court, transferring core powers previously held by the Supreme Court and High Courts, abolishing Article 184, and introducing article 175 E (3), the amendment fundamentally alters judicial review, federal equilibrium and constitutional identity. Passed in haste, mirroring the deeply controversial Twenty-Sixth amendment, the 27^th amendment was enacted without public debate, without agreement with bar councils and without transparent deliberation ordinarily expected of constitutional reform¹⁰. Most alarmingly, it creates a self-referential judicial mechanism. Challenges to the amendment must be heard by the very court created by amendment, rendering meaningful constitutional scrutiny nearly impossible¹⁰. This article argues that the amendment undermines judicial independence, distorts provincial autonomy, violates the rule of law and crosses limits of Parliament’s amending powers ^2-6. Through doctrinal analysis, comparative constitutional experience^{9 11} and Pakistan’s own jurisprudence ^2-6, it concludes that the 27^th amendment incompatible with essential features of the Constitution requires urgent reconsideration or judicial invalidation.