Pyrrhic Victory

Last fall, Pakistan’s parliament passed a constitutional amendment that stripped the top court of some of its powers while shoring up those of the country’s back-seat rulers, the military.

While the government said the move was necessary to restore stability at a time when turmoil is escalating in the country – and with its neighbors – critics countered that it undermines the country’s democracy and risks turning Pakistan into an authoritarian state.

But then, that’s the point, say observers: If it is a choice between enforced stability and democracy, Pakistan’s rulers say stability is the choice – irrespective of the cost.

Passed on Oct. 21 with extraordinary speed in the middle of the night and without the usual public review process for fear of being preemptively blocked by the Supreme Court, the amendment doubled the number of Supreme Court judges to dilute the power of those that have sided with the opposition in the past. It changed the appointment process for the chief justice position to favor pro-government candidates.

It also stripped the court of its power to take up certain cases including political cases, while shoring up the power of the military.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the amendment would reaffirm parliamentary supremacy, and be a “milestone” for the country’s political and economic stability.

Critics said the amendments “are an attempt to subjugate the judiciary and bring it under the control of the executive.”

Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center told the South China Morning Post he saw them as a “devastating blow” to Pakistan’s democracy and which makes the legislature a “rubber stamp” for the military: “These changes give more power to unelected forces that often already enjoy impunity.”

“(Pakistan is fast becoming) part of a club you don’t want to be grouped with if you care about democracy,” he added, referring to Egypt and Turkey who “emphasize the imperatives of brutal efficiency over democracy. That’s no recipe for long-term stability … but a ‘Pyrrhic victory’.”

Still, bringing the courts under control is an old fight in Pakistan partially because “power-drunk, headline-hogging judges have contributed to the mess,” wrote the Economist, detailing how Supreme Court judges have solicited funds to build a dam and other un-judicial measures.

More critically, the court has removed two prime ministers in the past 15 years and helped bring the enormously popular former prime minister, Imran Khan, to power, say analysts.

Most agree the new amendment is meant to target supporters of Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party: The government had been worried that the Supreme Court would release Khan and even invalidate the January 2024 election.

Khan was ousted in a 2022 no-confidence vote. Since then, the government has tried to keep him out of politics – he has been jailed since 2023 and was sentenced to 14 years for corruption on Jan. 17. He says the charges are political.

Meanwhile, candidates backed by his party swept the elections in early 2024 in spite of running in the “most rigged” election in the country’s history, which was also seen as a public repudiation of the generals. Since then, Pakistan has seen regular protests demanding Khan’s release and an invalidation of the election results. These protests have often faced violent crackdowns.

Alongside the attempt to sideline the top court is a renewed crackdown on civil space. For example, the government created new courts to hear defamation cases brought by the military against the opposition or civil society activists, cases they label as “digital terrorism.”

On Tuesday, Pakistan passed a bill that would implement sweeping controls on social media that include blocking platforms and sending users to prison for spreading disinformation or content deemed “offensive,” such as posts critical of judges, the military, or the government, the Associated Press reported. Journalists took to the streets in protest, while civil liberties groups said the law was intended to crack down on freedoms of speech and press.

The government is considering a bill to allow the security forces to detain anyone without a warrant for 90 days, reported Dawn.

The government says these measures are necessary to usher in the stability needed to bring the country’s economic crisis under control and maintain investor and debtor confidence. They also say they are necessary to deal with a surge in terrorism from separatists in Baluchistan and other militants such as the Pakistani Taliban who are getting support from Afghanistan. In December, that support led to Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan that killed almost 50 people.

Writing in the Nation, Pakistani writer Hasan Ali said the country is in a spiral.

“Amid the dizzying churn of Pakistani politics, where political parties take turns doing the military’s bidding and journalists are terrorized for holding them to account,” he wrote, “there is a sense that the country has never been so broken.”