Constitutional court to be formed come what may, vows Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari

• "Judicial reforms to be undertaken in line with Charter of Democracy".
• Says 19th amendment was introduced "following a threat from SC”.
• Govt lacks 2/3 majority in parliament to pass proposed amendments.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has categorically said that the formation of the constitutional court is compulsory and his party will ensure its formation come what may.

Addressing the Sindh High Court Bar Association on Tuesday, the PPP chief said that 19th constitutional amendment was introduced under duress “following a threat from the Supreme Court”.

“The judicial reforms would be undertaken in line with the Charter of Democracy (COD) come what may,” he vowed.

The government pushed the proposed constitutional package amid speculation about a potential extension in the tenure of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, who is set to retire in October this year, following the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) request last month for the early issuance of a notification regarding the appointment of the next top judge.

Bilawal continued that the parliament had replaced the judges’ appointment procedure with a globally recognised law via 18th amendment. “In the United States, entire parliament decides on the appointment of judges that is why martial law is never imposed in the US,” he added.

Terming the ex-premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death sentence a “judicial murder”, Bilawal said that it was “necessary and also our compulsion” to establish a constitutional court so no other prime minister could be executed and justice would be served to the people.

He came down hard on military rulers and said that her mother Benazir Bhutto had seen the military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq’s era in which all political workers went through brutal torture.

The politico recalled: “Shaheed Benazir knew that our system was broken. At that time, [former chief justice] Iftikhar Chaudhry was not a revolutionary but a PCO judge.”

“[…] nor there was any ‘dam wala judge,’” Bilawal said while referring to ex-CJP Mian Saqib Nisar without naming him.

He said that a decision was taken to form a constitutional court citing the need of the people to get justice “when courts were fixing the prices of pakora and tomatoes at that time”.

Despite claims of securing the "magic number" needed to push the bill through, the government failed to table the judiciary-centric amendments — possibly including the establishment of a separate constitutional court — in parliament and postponed its move indefinitely.

To pass the constitutional amendments, the government is short of 13 votes in the National Assembly (NA) and nine in the Senate.

To attain the required parliamentary strength for passing the judicial package, the ruling coalition parties — the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) — held a flurry of meetings to woo Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, but to no avail.

The ruling coalition is inclined towards the politico-religious party as it remained a close ally of both parties in the previous government led by the Pakistan Democratic Movement.

This multi-party party alliance successfully ousted former premier Imran Khan from office via a no-confidence motion in 2022.

However, the JUI-F chief, whose party's lawmakers are now sitting on the opposition benches, had rejected the constitutional package introduced by the incumbent government, alleging that it aimed at protecting the coalition government and would disturb the balance of power among state institutions.