• President gives assent to bill on PM’s advice.
• Assent given to bill after nod from both houses.
• Senate greenlights bill after changes by NA. 

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday gave assent to the much-debated 27th Constitutional Amendment after approval from the Parliament.

With the president’s signature, the amendment has now officially become part of the Constitution.

“The Constitution (Twenty-Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2025 is assented to, as advised by the Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif], at Para-5 of the Summary,” read a notification issued by the President’s House. 

The development came moments after the Senate approved the amendment bill following changes approved by the National Assembly a day earlier, amid noisy protests by the opposition.

Federal Minister for Law Azam Nazeer Tarar presented the constitutional amendment bill today, with the tweaks to the draft earlier approved by the upper house. The amendment bill received 64 votes (two-thirds majority in the 96-member House) in favour and four against.

Senate Chairman Yousuf Raza Gilani announced the result, saying: “So the motion is carried by the votes of not less than two-thirds of the total membership of the Senate, and consequently, the bill stands passed.”

The much-touted bill was initially presented in the upper house of parliament on Monday and got a nod on the same day. It was then referred to the NA, which approved it with some amendments. Therefore, the legislation was again presented in the Senate today to approve the latest changes.

New tweaks

A day earlier, the National Assembly passed the amendment bill that seeks to change the judicial structure and military command, with 234 votes in favour and four against amid the opposition’s walkout. It included eight amendments — not part of the Senate-approved previous version — aimed at clarifying the chief justice’s position.

The amended bill fine-tunes the structure of the newly established Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), clarifies the titles and ranking of the country’s top judges, and drops several clauses from the Senate-approved draft that had sought to alter oath-related provisions for various constitutional offices.

One of the most significant updates relates to Clause 2, which modifies Article 6(2A) of the Constitution — the article concerning high treason. The National Assembly’s version adds the term “Federal Constitutional Court” after “the”, thereby explicitly including the new court within the ambit of Article 6. The earlier Senate draft had not mentioned the court by name.

The lower house also introduced a fresh Clause 2A to amend Article 10(4), which deals with preventive detention. This revision adds the words “Supreme Court” within the explanatory portion of that article.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly deleted several provisions that had appeared in the Senate’s version. Clauses 4, 19, 51, and 55 — which collectively proposed to modify the wording of oaths administered to a range of constitutional officeholders — were removed from the final text.

Clause 4 had aimed to revise Article 42, under which the president takes the oath of office before the Chief Justice of Pakistan, by substituting the phrase “Chief Justice of Pakistan” with “Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court.”

Likewise, Clause 19 proposed changes to Article 168, which regulates the appointment and oath of the Auditor General of Pakistan. It would have added the term “Supreme Court” before “Chief Justice of Pakistan,” thereby slightly altering the formal oath text.

Clause 51 mirrored this approach for Article 214, which requires the Chief Election Commissioner to take the oath before the Chief Justice. The Senate draft suggested replacing this with “Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court.”

Similarly, Clause 55 sought to amend Article 255(2), which applies in cases where an oath cannot be administered before the designated official. At present, the Chief Justice of Pakistan can nominate another person; the Senate version proposed transferring this authority to the Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court.

All of these oath-related proposals were ultimately omitted by the National Assembly.

Another key modification came in Clause 23, which amends Article 176 to include a proviso specifying that, “notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution, the incumbent Chief Justice shall continue to be known as the Chief Justice of Pakistan during his term in office.”

A further addition was made under Clause 56, which now defines the “Chief Justice of Pakistan” as “the senior among the Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,” thereby establishing a formal hierarchy between the two judicial heads.

The multi-clause amendment bill required a two-thirds majority in the 336-member House. The ruling coalition easily secured the required votes, with the PML-N holding 125 seats, the PPP 74, the MQM-P 22, the PML-Q four, the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party four, and one seat each held by the PML-Z, the Balochistan Awami Party, and the National Peoples Party.

However, four members from the JUI-F, once a close ally of the ruling PML-N, were the only lawmakers to register their votes against the amendments.