One Hand on the Bench: Pakistan's Federal Constitutional Court and the 2026 Rules

Seven chairs in the new court's chamber are still empty. In the room where Pakistan's Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is supposed to hear its first cases, the number of seats has been fixed, but seven places carry no name. The text of the rules says nothing about those empty chairs. It says a great deal about something else: who constitutes a bench, which case goes to whom, and where a matter is sent when opinions divide. Read the 2026 rules closely, and what stands out is not the empty seats outside but the architecture of concentrated power inside.

Since the rules were notified, opinion among Pakistani lawyers has split in two. One camp argues the new court needed precision and efficiency, and the rules deliver exactly that. The other argues the rules simply concentrate authority in one office. Both things can be true at once. That is precisely where the real question sits.

Creating a new apex court is not novel in Pakistan. But the court that emerged after the 26th and 27th constitutional amendments has a different character. The Federal Constitutional Court has been given jurisdiction over the enforcement of fundamental rights and constitutional interpretation. Final resolution of constitutional disputes now has more than one destination. That is where the complexity begins.

The rules cannot be understood without the political backdrop. For years, friction between the judiciary and the executive has been a daily feature of Pakistani politics. In the confrontation between PTI and the then opposition alliance, the PDM, the courts kept moving to the centre. Cases against Imran Khan, against PTI leaders, and against the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister created an environment in which every judicial decision is read politically. Building a new apex court in such an environment is not merely a structural change; it is a rebalancing of power.

Against that backdrop, recall the reform of 2026. The framework introduced in the Supreme Court then stripped the chief justice of sole bench-constitution authority and handed it to a three-judge committee. The intent was plain: which judge hears which case should not depend on one person's preference. The reform was presented as an answer to the long-standing complaint about benches built to taste.

The FCC's 2026 rules do not follow that reform. They restore the older model, under which the chief justice alone constitutes benches. That single decision defines the court's future character. Two different bench-formation rules across a country's two apex courts is no small inconsistency.

What sole bench-constitution power actually means is not hard to see. Which case goes to which judge, how many judges hear it, which matter is listed first: these choices effectively set a case's trajectory. The power is not merely administrative; it directly shapes outcomes. The hand that makes these decisions indirectly signals which questions will be treated as urgent and which will be left hanging.

Under another provision, when judges differ, the matter is referred to another judge or a larger bench, again at the chief justice's discretion. The power to constitute a larger bench also rests with him, at any stage, on grounds of importance, complexity or public significance. There is no clear line between when a case goes to a larger bench and when it does not.

Supporters will say this creates flexibility, allowing swift constitution of larger benches in urgent matters. Critics will say this very flexibility makes the entire judicial trajectory dependent on one person's will. Both are right. But what balances the power? There is no written check, no committee, no automatic rule. Where the balance of power rests only on an individual's restraint, the institution rests on the individual.

Then there is the appointment question. FCC judges are appointed by the federal government. When a court whose jurisdiction includes politically sensitive matters has its judges appointed by the executive, the independence question arises almost automatically. Some lawyers call this a battle of perception. That battle is fought not in case outcomes but in public belief. And belief, once lost, is hard to recover with paper efficiency.

The most direct statement in this debate comes from a named lawyer, Abdul Moiz Jaferii. His argument is that because the new court's independent standing is not yet established, it is being built as a disciplined, almost military-camp-like single unit. The argument is transparent, and it is in substance an anti-pluralism position, even though it is presented as an argument for efficiency. If someone says discipline matters more than dissent, that is no longer about efficiency; it is about control.

The result is a strange two-tier arrangement. In the Supreme Court, benches are constituted by a three-judge committee; in the FCC, by one person. Two rules for two apex courts in one country. This is not a temporary mismatch; it is a durable structural tension that will surface in every politically significant case.

That two-tier arrangement has a practical consequence. Lawyers must now calculate where their client's interest is better protected. Where bench-formation rules differ, similar cases will move at different speeds in the two courts. That opens the door to forum shopping, turning the choice of court into a strategic decision. That is not a healthy signal for judicial transparency.

On top of that sits jurisdictional uncertainty. After the 27th Amendment, there is no clear boundary defining which case goes to the Supreme Court and which to the FCC. If a matter is pulled between both, resolution is delayed, and delay means uncertain outcomes. Every decision by those who will run this structure, including incumbent FCC Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi, will land inside this two-tier friction.

Notably, Aminuddin Khan had earlier been seen as aligned with the three-judge committee position. Now he administers rules that do not follow it. Whether that reflects a change of view or structural pressure, time will tell. The question matters, because individuals change while the structure stays.

Now to the place where two data points sit together and form an uncomfortable picture. The FCC is defended on the grounds that the rules will bring precision and efficiency. But the same record shows seven of the court's judicial seats remain vacant, and more than 23,000 cases are pending. For the 2026-27 fiscal year, Rs6.048 billion has been allocated to the FCC.

The gap between the efficiency claim and the capacity reality is the least discussed part of this story. Vacant seats, a huge case backlog and a brand-new institution together mean the word precision stays on paper. If a bench is constituted by one judge's decision but does not even have its full complement of members, where does efficiency come from? The first condition of building an institution is completeness; here it is absent.

There is another, less-discussed dimension to the vacancies. If appointments move slowly, the court's character takes shape in an incomplete state. Those who do sit face more pressure. A larger backlog means less time, less room for analysis, and less depth in judgments. Efficiency then becomes a pressure for speed, which in the long run damages the quality of justice. However large the allocation, empty chairs cannot be filled with money.

One caveat deserves to be kept in mind: much of this discussion rests on the notified text of the rules and on comments from lawyers who did not wish to be named. The provisions are clear on paper, but phrases like battle of perception or military camp are interpretation, not fact. Interpretation should neither be mistaken for fact nor dismissed outright. The truth is that the blueprint for concentrated power is written into the text itself; it does not wait on interpretation.

What does this mean for ordinary people? Where final resolution of political cases is uncertain, cases involving ordinary citizens' fundamental rights are also left uncertain. A new court's greatest asset is the credibility of its first few rulings. If those rulings are politically contested, and if the bench-formation method itself is under question, that credibility may erode before it is ever built.

Still, there is no reason for despair. If the FCC issues a clear and bold ruling in a case touching the executive's interests, the controlled-court narrative would be partly broken. An institution can prove its independence through its own rulings, however concentrated the rules may be. That is both its greatest opportunity and its hardest test.

So what should be watched next? First, how the chief justice constitutes a bench in the first politically sensitive case, which is the real test of the rules. Second, how quickly the seven vacant seats are filled, and how many appointments come at once. Third, where a case lands when Supreme Court and FCC jurisdiction collide. These three signals will show how credible the new court can become beyond the efficiency promised on paper.

Pakistan's new constitutional court will be judged in its first political case, not by the language of the rules but by the shape of its bench. And for as long as seven chairs in that bench remain empty, the promise of efficiency will hang like an unfinished sentence.