A petition has been filed with the Sindh High Court (SHC) to challenge the promulgation of the Constitutional Benches of High Court of Sindh (Practice & Procedure) Ordinance, 2025.
Ali Tahir said in his petition that the impugned ordinance is a significant intervention in the administration and the adjudication of constitutional matters within the SHC by the executive branch.
The impugned ordinance purports to regulate the constitution, jurisdiction, administration and procedure of the constitutional benches established under Article 202-A of the constitution, he added.
Tahir said that although Article 202-A(6), added after the 27th amendment, allows the Provincial Assembly of Sindh to regulate how the constitutional benches of the SHC work, the way this ordinance was issued raises concerns.
The clause uses the phrase “Act of the Provincial Assembly”, and while the constitution’s definitions include an ordinance within that category, the troubling part is that the ordinance was not issued by the governor at all, he added.
He said that it was instead pushed through an acting governor in clear haste, almost as if there was a race to show how quickly control over the judiciary can be tightened.
One is left to ask what possible urgency existed that the PA could not meet, debate and pass this measure through normal legislative process, he added.
He also said that any step that touches the judiciary should be taken with serious reflection, broad consultation and transparency, but in this case there was no input from the bar council, no engagement with civil society and, apparently, not even a conversation with the judiciary itself.
The acting governor, appointed only to handle routine day-to-day matters for a short period, suddenly signed and enforced an ordinance of major constitutional consequence, he added.
The petitioner said that the promulgation of the ordinance violates Article 128 of the constitution that strictly limits the governor’s power to issue ordinances to situations where the assembly is not in session and where circumstances exist that render it necessary to take immediate action.
In the present case there was no pressing emergency that warranted bypassing the legislative process, especially when the matter relates to a judicial reform, he added.
Tahir said that the issuance of the impugned enactment, bypassing the parliament and the due legislative process, constitutes a violation of the rule of law and parliamentary sovereignty. No emergent situation existed to justify the bypassing of the parliament in promulgating the impugned enactment, he added.
He said that the ordinance, by providing that every application, cause, matter or petition filed with the SHC falling within Article 199 would be heard and decided exclusively by the constitutional benches, purports to oust the jurisdiction of all the other benches for all Article 199 matters.
The imposition of a “first in, first out” rule for the listing and hearing of cases, and the requirement that urgent applications be fixed within 14 days, constitute a direct interference with judicial discretion in case management, he added.
He also said that the ordinance empowers the head of the constitutional benches to make rules for the practice and procedure of the benches, but Article 202-A(6) provides that the high court may make rules regulating the practice and procedure of the constitutional benches, subject to an act of the PA.
The petitioner said that the power to make rules is thus vested in the high court, not in an individual judge or office created by subordinate legislation.
He requested the SHC to declare the constitutional benches ordinance unconstitutional, and strike down the impugned ordinance in its entirety, or as an alternative, strike down the provisions that transgress constitutional limits, distort the scheme of Article 202-A or create mechanisms not permitted by the constitution.