ISLAMABAD: President has accepted the resignations of SC judges Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah on Friday (14th Nov, 2025).
Reacting to the President’s signing of 27th Constitutional Amendment bill into law SC Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah tendered their resignations here on Thursday (13th November, 2025).
Addressing the president of Pakistan Justice Mansoor Ali Shah stated via correspondence:
“The Twenty-Seventh Constitutional Amendment stands as a grave assault on the Constitution of Pakistan. It dismantles the SC, subjugates the judiciary to executive control, and strikes at the very heart of our constitutional democracy – making justice more distant, more fragile, and more vulnerable to power.
“By fracturing the unity of the nation’s apex court, it has crippled judicial independence and integrity, pushing the country back by decades. As history bears witness, such disfigurement of the constitutional order is unsustainable and will, in time, be reversed – but not before leaving deep institutional scars.
At this critical juncture, only two courses are open to me as a Judge of this Court: either to remain within an arrangement that undermines the very foundation of the institution one has sworn to protect, or to step aside in protest against its subjugation. Staying on not would only amount to silent acquiescence in a constitutional wrong, but would also mean continuing to sit in a court whose constitutional voice has been muted.
“Unlike the twenty-Sixth Amendment – when the SC still retained the jurisdiction to examine and answer the constructional questions – the present amendment has stripped this Court of that fundamental and critical jurisdiction and authority. Serving in such a truncated and diminished court, I cannot protect the Constitution, not can I even judicially examine the amendment that has disfigured it.“
Justice Athar Minallah, in his 13th Nov correspondence addressed to the President, stated:
“Mr. President!
“Eleven years ago, I took the oath of office as a judge of the Islamabad High Court. Four years later, I swore an oath as that court’s Chief Justice. Another four years on, I swore an oath as a judge of the SC of Pakistan. Across this period of more than a decade in these robes, and across all those oaths, the solemn promise that I made was fundamentally the same. It was not an oath to a constitution, It was an oath to the Constitution.
Prior to the passage of Twenty Seventh Amendment, I wrote to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, expressing concern over what its proposed features meant for our constitutional order. I need not reproduce the detailed contents of that letter, but suffice it to say that, against a canvas of selective silence and inaction, those fears have now come to be.
“It has been my greatest honour and privilege to serve the people of Pakistan as part of its judiciary and I have, to the best of my ability, endeavoured to discharge my duties in accordance with my oath. Today, it is that very same oath that compels me to tender my formal resignation.
“The Constitution that I swore an oath to uphold and defend is no more. Much as I have tried to convince myself otherwise, I can think of no greater assault on its memory than to pretend that, as new foundations are now laid, they rest upon anything other than its grave. For, what is left of it is a mere shadow – one that breathes neither its spirit, nor speaks the words of the people to whom it belongs.
“These robes we wear are more than mere ornaments. They are to serve as a reminder of that most noble trust bestowed upon those fortunate enough to don them. Instead, through out our history, they have too often stood as symbols of betrayal, through silence and complicity alike. If future generations are to see them any differently, then our future cannot be repeat of our past.
“It is in that ardent hope that I now hang these robes up for the last time, I tender my formal resignation from the office of Judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, with immediate effect. May those who judge do so in Truth.”
Newspakistan.tv
