United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Turk on Tuesday said he was “concerned” that the 26th constitutional amendment enacted by Pakistan’s Parliament will “seriously undermine” judicial independence.
The 26th constitutional amendment passed earlier this week introduces several changes to the country’s judiciary, including empowering parliamentarians to nominate the next chief justice of Pakistan from a panel of three senior-most Supreme Court judges. The legislation also allows for the transfer of cases from any high court to the Supreme Court, and has increased the number of parliamentarians in the Judicial Commission of Pakistan.
In his statement, posted on X by the U.N. Human Rights Office, Turk said he was concerned that the “latest constitutional amendments—adopted hastily, without broad consultation and debate—will seriously undermine independence of the judiciary. It stressed that constitutional reforms “must be in line with international human rights law.”
Earlier this week, the International Commission of Jurists had similarly criticized the constitutional amendment, describing it as an erosion of the judiciary’s ability to serve independently and check any excesses of the executive.
Various lawyers’ bodies and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have also criticized the legislation, vowing to launch a protest movement to get them revoked and “restore” the independence of judiciary.