Editorial: Parliament’s hasty constitutional tweaks blurred the FCC-SC hierarchy. It must now resolve the ambiguity

On Friday, the Federal Constitutional Court celebrated its first anniversary with a commemorative stamp. Chief Justice Yahya Afridi noted how quickly the year had passed, but for litigants, lawyers, and Supreme Court judges, the impact of the 27th Amendment was far from fleeting. The amendment rewrote the country's judiciary structure, creating constitutional benches within the Supreme Court (SC) chosen by a reconstituted Judicial Commission. However, critics argued that the rushed process threatened the independence of the judiciary.

Two senior SC judges resigned in protest when the 27th Amendment became law, transferring thousands of cases to the Federal Judicial Court (FCC), stripping the SC of its constitutional jurisdiction. The ensuing legal disputes over authority between the FCC and SC have raised concerns over judicial discipline and the costs borne by litigants, as cases are shuffled between forums.

The FCC has ruled that its decisions bind all courts, including the SC, while the SC maintains that the two courts are coordinate, neither an appellate forum over the other. This disagreement highlights the ambiguity created by the hasty amendments and the need for parliament to resolve it by defining the relationship between the two courts in law. The judiciary's structure is not the only issue; its independence remains in doubt, which hampers public trust in the system.