In yet another letter highlighting the rift within the judiciary, four Supreme Court (SC) judges expressed their reservations on Monday regarding the process being adopted for the review and approval of Supreme Court Rules 2025. They dubbed the full court meeting, which was called for this purpose today, a mere “stamp of approval” for the rules, which they said were already decided and unilaterally approved. The letter addressed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi, was sent by senior puisne judge Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Ayesha Malik, and Justice Athar Minallah. They pointed out that “if the full court was not deemed necessary for the adoption of the rules themselves, how can it now be summoned to deliberate upon their amendment?” The judges said the working paper for the meeting’s agenda stated that under Rule 1(4) of the Supreme Court Rules 2025, the CJP may “remove any difficulty in giving effect to the said rules” on the recommendations of a committee that was constituted by him and had already been formed. Moreover, “the chief justice, through a letter dated August 12, 2025, informed the judges that the rules had already been approved through circulation and duly notified in the Gazette on August 9, 2025,” the judges highlighted. Yet, they further stated, the CJP had sought suggestions “for further amendments” to the rules. Calling into question the legality of the rules themselves, the judges noted that the “present Supreme Court rules were never placed before, nor approved by, the full court.” Citing Article 191 of the Constitution, they said the SC had the “power to make rules regulating its practice and procedure, but this power is exercised collectively by the court as an institution”. The judges concluded that any rules established “without deliberation and approval of the full court” lacked its approval and could not acquire “binding legal status”. They were of the opinion that the rules, in their present form, “suffer from both substantive and procedural illegality”. In this connection, they expressed reservations that rules were processed through circulation. “Circulation is an administrative convenience to deal with routine or minor procedural matters; it is not, and cannot be, the vehicle for laying down the constitutional architecture of this court’s governance. “Unless the full court had itself had expressly resolved to adopt circulation for this purpose, the chief justice alone could not unilaterally resort to it.” Further highlighting confusion around the matter, the judges said that the working paper for the meeting invoked “Rule 1(R) regarding removal of difficulties” during the process, despite there being no need to invoke the provision. The judges deliberated that the provision was invoked only “to defend or justify the unilateral process already undertaken.” “Instead of clarifying the legitimacy of the rules, this only exposes their infirmity: if no difficulty exists, why place such a point before the full court?” they asked. The four SC judges termed the purpose behind the move “puzzling and fallacious”. The judges, in their letter, questioned why a full court was convened if the rules had already been notified as “approved” on August 9. Within three days, on 12 August, CJP “sought suggestions for amendment in the same rules,” the judges said. They went on to add that “this sequence tacitly acknowledges that the full court is the correct forum for such deliberation,” but noted that it was only undertaken after the “fait accompli of unilateral approval.” “This amounts to putting the cart before the horse-first declaring the Rules valid, and then calling the full court merely to consider patchwork amendments,” they added. On that note, the judges regretted that the “meeting is being used to give a veneer of legitimacy to an otherwise invalid process,” and aimed to reduce the role of a full court to only “cosmetic”. The forum was being used to ratify “what has already been done rather than discharging its true constitutional function under Article 191,” the judges claimed. The judges recommended that the constitutional course of action would have been to “place the rules in their entirety, before the full court, permit genuine discussion and deliberation, and only thereafter seek formal approval.” Calling for the abandonment of the meeting, the judges said that it was “designed to merely serve as a stamp of approval” and to proceed with it would be equal to reducing the “full court to an afterthought — convened not for decision-making but for damage control.” The judges noted that such a move “undermines the collective authority of this court.” Citing the above reservations, the four judges refused to attend the full court, unless a constitutional course of action is adopted, stating that, “we see no point in attending a meeting that is premised on amending rules which, in our respectful view, already suffer from illegality both in substance and in process.” The letter further called for the objection to be presented in the minutes of the full court meeting and for the meeting to be made public. “People are entitled to know how rules governing the internal life of the court came to be notified without discussion or deliberation amongst its judges,” the letter added, calling the meeting a ploy to “cloak” the whole process in a “semblance of legitimacy”. “By opening our deliberations to the gaze of the people we serve, we reinforce the trust without which no constitutional court can function,” the letter concluded.
In letter to CJP, 4 judges term SC full court meeting ‘stamp of approval’ for ‘already decided’ rules
