ISLAMABAD: Prominent lawyers and civil society members have paid tribute to three judges who resigned in protest following the passage of the 27th Constitutional Amendment, praising their decision to “preserve their constitutional oath and honour over office and privilege”.
Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah stepped down on November 13, hours after President Asif Ali Zardari signed the controversial amendment into law. Justice Shah denounced the amendment as “a grave assault on the Constitution of Pakistan”, while Justice Minallah said he had sworn to uphold “the Constitution”, not “a constitution”.
Two days later, Lahore High Court Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza also resigned, stating: “After the 27th Amendment in the Constitution, I am not inclined as a matter of principle and in good conscience to continue as a judge.”
In a joint statement, 60 lawyers and citizens said the nation should not mourn the resignations themselves but “the demise of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the high courts of Pakistan, and the extinguishment of the last embers of an independent judiciary”.
Signatories included prominent lawyers Abid S. Zuberi, Jibran Nasir, Imaan Mazari, Asad Rahim, Sardar Latif Khosa, Salman Akram Raja, Zainab Janjua, Faisal Siddiqui and Salahuddin Ahmed, along with Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan leader Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar.
The statement praised Justice Shah as “one of the finest jurists ever produced by Pakistan”, commending his commitment to judicial reform and his vision for modernising the justice system.
“It is our judiciary’s and our nation’s misfortune that we have chosen to sacrifice him at the altar of short-term political expediency and the desire for personal advancement of others,” it read.
Justice Minallah, the statement said, had been a consistent voice for the marginalised — including families of missing persons, persecuted journalists, political opposition, and judges pressured by intelligence agencies. It noted his capacity for introspection regarding Pakistan’s judicial history and credited him with transforming the Islamabad High Court into a “citadel of judicial independence”.
On Justice Mirza, the statement said he set an enduring example of a judge who refused to let fundamental rights become “casualties of turbulent times” and served as an “anchor of constitutional steadiness”. His resignation, it added, would ensure that “history places him firmly on the side of constitutional courage”.
The signatories said it was ironic that the judges were criticised “not for their own sins but for earlier sins of those whom they resisted”. Their fault, they said, “lay in the steadfastness of their ‘no’ when others were willing to say ‘yes’”.
“Their decision to preserve their constitutional oath and honour over office and privilege — to speak out instead of silently acquiescing to regression masquerading as reform; to stand instead of kneeling — is a spark to the conscience of a nation,” the statement concluded.
