KARACHI: City courts in Pakistan’s Karachi remained closed for a third consecutive day on Saturday as lawyers across the southern Sindh province pressed ahead with protests against a sweeping constitutional overhaul they say hands the executive unprecedented influence over the judiciary.
The unrest began after Parliament approved the 27th Amendment earlier this week with a two-thirds majority, creating a new federal court empowered to interpret the constitution and hear fundamental rights cases, an authority that had previously rested with the Supreme Court.
Tensions escalated on Thursday when Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah resigned hours after the amendment became law, denouncing the changes as a “grave assault” on the constitution and triggering alarm among jurists, bar associations and opposition parties.
“Our boycott of court proceedings continues for the third consecutive day today,” Muhammad Ghulam Rehman Korai, General Secretary of the Karachi Bar Association, told Arab News over the phone from Sukkur. “We held a successful convention in Sukkur today, which is a clear indication that lawyers view the constitutional amendment as a black law which they believe is aimed at ending the independence of the judiciary.”
