New Delhi: Even as two Supreme Court judges resigned in protest, Pakistan has formally sworn in the newly created Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) a day after a law that will reshape the country’s judicial structure and grant the Pakistan Army chief authority over all branches of the military along with lifelong immunity came into force.

On Friday (November 14), at the Presidential Palace in Islamabad, President Asif Ali Zardari administered the oath of office to the first chief justice of the FCC, Justice Alimuddin Khan.

He was sworn in after Zardari signed the 27th Constitutional Amendment passed by the National Assembly and the Senate, bringing in sweeping changes to the judiciary and military, which critics claim has altered the country's constitutional structure.

Later, Justice Aminuddin administered the oath of office to six judges of the FCC.

Zardari signed the law on Thursday, after the Pakistan parliament's upper house, the Senate, approved the amendment after voting on it for a second time amidst raucous protests by the opposition.

The 27th Amendment transfers several core powers of the Supreme Court to the new FCC, which will now hear constitutional cases that had previously fallen under the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, with equal representation from all provinces.

A key authority of the Supreme Court, taking suo motu notice, has also been shifted to the FCC, which will be able to initiate such action on the basis of petitions.

The overhaul has dissolved the Supreme Court's constitutional benches and, through the Supreme Court Practice and Procedure (Amendment) Bill 2025, moved the power to constitute case-hearing benches to a three-member committee headed by the chief justice, along with the most senior judge and a third judge nominated by the top jurist.

The retirement age for FCC judges has been set at 68, higher than the current retirement age of 65 for Supreme Court judges.

The constitutional amendment also alters the appointment process, with the first chief justice and judges of the FCC to be appointed by the president on the prime minister’s advice, while a special parliamentary committee will subsequently choose the chief justices of both the FCC and the Supreme Court from among serving judges, without any prescribed criteria.

A last-minute change in the 27th Amendment has also addressed confusion over who holds the title of chief justice of Pakistan. The amended text states that the incumbent Supreme Court chief justice will continue to hold the title during his term, and that after his retirement it will pass to whichever of the two chief justices, of the FCC or the Supreme Court, is the senior-most.

Just hours after the presidential assent, the Supreme Court's second-most senior judge Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Athar Minallah quit, with their letters assailing the enactment of the law.

Justice Shah wrote that the amendment “dismantles the Supreme Court of Pakistan, subjugates the judiciary to executive control and strikes at the very heart of our constitutional democracy, making justice more distant, more fragile and more vulnerable to power”.

Remaining in office, he said, would amount to “silent acquiescence in a constitutional wrong” and require him to sit in a court whose constitutional voice “has been muted”.

He noted that while the Supreme Court had retained the jurisdiction to examine constitutional questions under the 26th Amendment, “the present amendment has stripped this court of that fundamental and critical jurisdiction and authority”.

Justice Minallah in his resignation letter said that before the 27th Amendment was passed, he had written to the chief justice to convey his concerns about the proposed changes and their implications for Pakistan’s constitutional order.

“I need not reproduce the detailed contents of that letter, but suffice it to say that, against a canvas of selective silence and inaction, those fears have now come to be,” he wrote. “The Constitution that I swore an oath to uphold and defend is no more”.

Their resignations were accepted by the president on Friday.

According to reports, Justice Salahuddin Panhwar became the third judge to write to the chief justice to seek a full court to examine the clauses in the amendment that relate to the judiciary.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi had called for a meeting of all judges on Friday, but as per an official press release, there was no discussion on the 27th Amendment.

At least two judges of the Islamabad high court have also signalled that they may step aside from hearing cases in the capital from December, reported Dawn.

During separate hearings, each judge indicated that “another judge will be sitting here” when a case is scheduled, hinting at possible transfers or exits. Their remarks come in the context of the 27th Amendment empowering the Judicial Commission of Pakistan to transfer high court judges without their consent, a provision that has raised concerns among sections of the judiciary.

A senior counsel and former attorney general of Pakistan, barrister Makhdoom Ali Khan, resigned from his post as a member of the Law and Justice Commission. In his resignation letter, he wrote that the amendment “scuttled whatever was left of an independent judiciary” and that remaining part of the commission, “an institution erected on the promise to reform the law”, would “be to perpetuate the worst fraud possible: a fraud on oneself”.

The International Commission of Jurists on Thursday strongly condemned the 27th Amendment as a “flagrant attack on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law”, adding that the changes “will significantly impair the judiciary’s ability to hold the executive accountable and protect the fundamental human rights of the people of Pakistan”.

At a gathering of the Karachi Bar Association, barrister Salahuddin Ahmed termed the amendment “a dark day in the democratic history of the country”, warning that the move to grant lifetime immunity to Field Marshal Asim Munir was “what former ruler Pervez Musharraf and others could not achieve”.

The Pakistan government reacted to the resignation of the Supreme Court justices by terming them as “political judges”.

“The contents of the resigned judges’ letters are political. Both the judges, in their letters, could not point out a single thing in the 27th Amendment which could be termed an attack on the Constitution,” said special assistant to the prime minister on political affairs, Rana Sanaullah.

Defence minister Khawaja Asif, speaking on the floor of the National Assembly on Friday, criticised the two resigned justices, arguing that their “conscience awakened only after their monopoly was curtailed”. He accused them of “selective amnesia” and said they had forgotten their role during earlier judicial interventions, including cases that removed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office.

He added the amendment sought to establish the supremacy of the Constitution and insisted those raising objections were standing with individuals rather than the country’s charter.

The opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan also held an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss its response to the 27th Amendment and the broader political situation.

The alliance said it would draw up a nationwide protest strategy, calling the amendment an “extremely dark and dangerous” step that undermines Pakistan’s constitutional order.

Beyond the judicial makeover, the 27th Amendment also marks a major shift in Pakistan’s civil-military balance. The amendment creates a new post of Chief of Defence Forces, a five-star position to be held by Field Marshal Asim Munir, placing the army, navy and air force under a single unified command for the first time.

The post carries lifelong rank, privileges and legal immunity, meaning the sitting office-holder will retain full protections even after retirement. Analysts say this elevates Munir above the traditional heads of the three services and centralises operational and administrative authority in a manner not previously provided for in the Constitution.

The Chief of Defence Forces will have a key say in the appointment of a newly created post of Commander of National Strategic Command, which will supervise Pakistan’s nuclear forces.

Further, removing a five-star officer will have to be done only through a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

In a column earlier this week, Pakistani political commentator Zahid Hussain wrote that “it is unprecedented in a democratic country not to hold leaders and state officials to account for their actions”.

Osama Malik, a senior constitutional law expert, told Deutsche Welle that the amendment “would be considered draconian even by martial law standards”.

“If the military chief in the future suspends parliament and abrogates parts of the constitution, there cannot be any legal action against him because of absolute immunity,” he said.

According to a Dawn analysis, the “Article 243 overhaul marks a leap towards military centralisation and consolidation of uniformed supremacy”. Retired Lieutenant General Asif Yasin Malik warned that “by placing an army officer as the Chief of Defence Forces with authority over the Air Force and Navy, the proposed system invites institutional imbalance and potential disaster”.

The government defends the changes as necessary to strengthen national defence in a “situation of war”, as law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar put it, while critics say the amendment institutionalises military dominance and weakens civilian oversight.

Munir’s elevation to Chief of Defence Forces also means he will remain at the apex of Pakistan’s military well beyond the end of his current term as Army chief. His original three-year tenure was due to end on November 27, but it was extended by five years, taking his term to 2027, after an amendment last year.

Under the latest changes to the Army Act following the 27th Amendment, Munir’s concurrent appointment as Chief of Defence Forces means “the existing tenure of the incumbent Chief of the Army Staff shall be deemed to have recommenced from the date of such notification”. His term will now run until November 2030.

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