Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Senator Syed Ali Zafar. PHOTO: X/@SyedAliZafar1
ISLAMABAD:
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday announced that it would not participate in the process of tabling or passing the 27th constitutional amendment, calling it a “predetermined and non-transparent exercise”.
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament alongside opposition leaders, Senator Ali Zafar said the government had submitted a draft containing 50 proposed amendments to the Constitution.
“These amendments are being made in secret,” he said, adding that the opposition had been invited to present its position before the standing committee.
“We haven’t even read a single word of it. How could we appear before the committee?” » asked Senator Zafar.
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 changes sought to grant presidential immunity for life and would abolish Article 184, under which the Supreme Court exercises its original jurisdiction to uphold fundamental rights.
“The spirit of the 1973 Constitution is being modified,” he noted. “Thanks to these amendments, the Supreme Court is being dismantled. It would be reduced to a simple court of appeal.”
He said the PTI “would not be part of any conspiracy against the Constitution”.
Echoing similar concerns, Senator Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, leader of the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), described the proposals as “an attack on the integrity of the Constitution of Pakistan”.
He recalled that the 18th Amendment was adopted by national consensus, while members were “coerced and threatened” during the adoption of the 26th.
“This parliament does not represent the people of Pakistan,” he said, warning that the new amendment would “end the very status of parliament.”
PTI general secretary Salman Akram Raja said in an article on X that the proposed amendment was a “ploy to enslave us”.
“Subjecting the Supreme Court to a new court, whose judges will be the favorites of the current Form 47 government, amounts to transforming the judicial system into an instrument of coercion,” he writes.
