What is the 26th Constitutional Amendment? – Pakistan

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The government has made hectic efforts since last month to bring what it says are judicial reforms in the country’s “wider interest”. This piece details those changes to the Constitution.

Since last month, the ruling coalition had been intensively lobbying political parties in parliament to gain backing for constitutional amendments, primarily focused on the judiciary.

The 26th Consti­tutional Amendment Bill, also known as the Constitutional Package, is legislation aimed at taking away the Supreme Court’s suo motu powers, setting the chief justice of Pakistan’s (CJP) term at three years, and empowering the prime minister to appoint the next CJP from among the three most senior SC judges.

Today (October 20), the draft of the bill was passed by the Senate with a two-thirds majority. The bill is now expected to be passed by the National Assembly, a session for which is currently underway.

An earlier attempt in September by the ruling PML-N to bulldoze the amendments did not succeed as it failed to win over the JUI-F and the legislation could not be tabled despite houses being in session.

A special parliamentary committee formed last month — which has the representation of all parties, including the PTI — had been discussing various proposals.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), has been playing a key mediating role as the opposition voiced concerns about the proposed amendments as well as alleged intimidation of its lawmakers for their support for the draft.

A major bone of contention was a proposed Federal Constitutional Court, which the PTI opposed and Fazl demanded a constitutional bench instead, which the draft now incorporates.

While the JUI-F had reached an agreement on the draft with the PPP earlier this month, the PTI said it had “no objections” to the final draft but officially boycotted the voting procedure.

The initial draft had reportedly proposed 56 amendments. However, after deliberations among the parties, these were reduced to 27 in the final version that landed in the parliament.

This piece details those amendments mentioned in the draft bill, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com. They are to “come into force at once”.

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