In a significant move, the Pakistan government on October 21 brought in the 26th amendment to its Constitution which empowers the Parliament to appoint judges to to Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has become a bone of contention between the incumbent government and jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan ruling on issues ranging from a controversial national election to a potential military court trial for Khan and his supporters.

The Constitutional amendment was approved during a special session of the Parliament on October 20 and 21. “The Chief Justice of Pakistan shall be nominated by the Special Parliamentary Committee…from amongst the three most senior Judges of the Supreme Court,” the text of amendment bill, which had a host of other procedural changes, read.

Previously, the Supreme Court’s second-most senior judge automatically became the chief justice when the top judge retired at age 65.

“It has been settled that Parliament is supreme,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said after his ruling coalition garnered the required two-thirds majority of Parliament to amend the Constitution for the 26th time since it was passed in 1973.

Lawmakers in Pakistan have long complained about judicial overreach into matters of governance, stoking tensions between the judiciary and legislature. Sharif defended the amendments, saying past verdicts had resulted in the sackings of sitting Prime Ministers, endorsements of military dictatorships, and the undermining of democracy and Parliament.

The current Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa is due to retire this Friday. There had been concern in government circles that senior judges below him and in the high courts had shown leniency to Khan in a number of cases, analysts say.

Former Pakistan cricket captain Khan, 71, has been in jail for over a year. His 2022 removal from office and subsequent clashes with the military have triggered Pakistan’s worst political turmoil in decades.