Islamabad, Pakistan \u2013 <\/strong>Pakistan has codified the most ambitious restructure of its military and judiciary in decades after President Asif Ali Zardari signed his assent to ratify the country\u2019s 27th Constitutional Amendment on Thursday.<\/p>\n The amendment, which passed in both houses of parliament earlier in the week amid opposition protests and criticism from a range of civil society activists and sitting judges, makes major changes to Pakistan\u2019s higher judiciary.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n But many analysts believe that its most\u00a0consequential feature is a sweeping overhaul of Article 243, the constitutional clause defining the relationship between Pakistan\u2019s civilian government and the military.<\/p>\n The changes grant lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution to the country\u2019s top military leaders, significantly reshape the military\u2019s command structure, and further tilt the balance of the tri-services \u2013 the army, navy and air force \u2013 heavily in the army\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n Analysts warn that this contentious reform risks colliding with entrenched institutional cultures and could rock the country\u2019s fragile civilian\u2013military equilibrium.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera has sought comment from the military\u2019s media wing on the changes and the debate over them, but has received no response.<\/p>\n The revised Article 243 establishes a new post, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), to be held concurrently by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). This effectively gives the army chief command authority over the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Pakistan Navy (PN).<\/p>\n The incumbent COAS is Field Marshal Asim Munir, who assumed command in November 2022 and was elevated to a five-star rank on May 20 this year, just 10 days after Pakistan ended its four-day conflict with India.<\/p>\n Munir became only the second Pakistani military officer \u2013 after Field Marshal Ayub Khan in the 1960s \u2013 to receive the five-star designation. The air force and navy have never had a five-star official so far.<\/p>\n The amendment also abolishes the office of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) at the end of this month. The role is currently held by four-star General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, who retires on November 27. Another major change is the creation of the Commander of the National Strategic Command (CNSC), a post overseeing Pakistan\u2019s nuclear command. The position will be limited to only an army officer, appointed in consultation with the CDF, with a three-year term extendable by another three years.<\/p>\n The amendment effectively transforms five-star titles from what were honorary recognitions\u00a0into constitutionally recognised offices with expansive privileges.<\/p>\n Under the new arrangement, five-star officers will enjoy lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution and will \u201cretain rank, privileges and remain in uniform for life.\u201d<\/p>\n Removing a five-star officer will require a two-thirds parliamentary majority, whereas an elected government can be dismissed by a simple majority.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile government spokespersons refer to these titles as \u2018honorary\u2019, given to \u2018national heroes\u2019 to celebrate their services,\u201d Reema Omer, a constitutional law expert, said, the amendment \u201cimplies actual power, not just honorary significance\u201d.<\/p>\n Omer told Al Jazeera that lifelong immunity from criminal proceedings was \u201cconcerning from a rule of law perspective\u201d.<\/p>\n A former three-star general, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the changes appeared to be \u201cmeant to consolidate\u201d the army chief\u2019s power.<\/p>\n Hours after the president\u2019s ratification on Thursday evening, Pakistan\u2019s government brought amendments to the laws governing the three services.<\/p>\n Under the revised Army Act, the clock on the tenure of the army chief will now restart from the date of his notification as CDF.<\/p>\n Last year, parliament had increased the tenure of the service chiefs from three to five years, which meant Munir\u2019s term would run until 2027. Following the new changes, it will now extend even further. Once the revised rules take effect at the end of this month, Munir will hold both posts \u2013 COAS and CDF \u2013 at least until November 2030.<\/p>\n Since independence in 1947, Pakistan\u2019s military, especially the army, has been the most powerful institution in national life.<\/p>\n Four coups and decades of direct rule have been accompanied by significant influence, even when civilian governments have been in power. The army chief has long been widely viewed as the country\u2019s most powerful figure.<\/p>\n No prime minister has ever completed a full five-year term, while three of four military rulers have governed for more than nine years each.<\/p>\n General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Munir\u2019s predecessor, acknowledged this history in his farewell address in November 2022, conceding that the military had interfered in politics for decades, and promising to break with that legacy.<\/p>\n But three years later, rights groups and opposition parties allege that little has changed, and some claim that the military has further strengthened its grip over state institutions.<\/p>\n The military restructure under the 27th Amendment also comes six months after Pakistan\u2019s brief conflict with India in May, raising questions over whether the reforms were linked to that fight.<\/p>\n Aqil Shah, professor of international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, argued that the confrontation with India created the opening for this \u201cunprecedented role expansion\u201d for the army chief.<\/p>\n The changes \u201cformalise the army\u2019s de facto hegemony over the other two wings of armed forces in the guise of the \u2018unity of command\u2019 as a necessity for war fighting,\u201d Shah told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n But supporters of the amendment disagree. Aqeel Malik, state minister for law and justice, said that the amendment aims to \u201cplug holes\u201d in Pakistan\u2019s national security architecture.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amendment granted constitutional cover to defence integration and improved coordination. We have also provided a constitutional cover to the honour bestowed upon our national heroes and have addressed a long overdue cohesive and better coordination within the forces for a swift response,\u201d Malik said.<\/p>\n Ahmed Saeed, a former vice admiral, similarly described the reform as a \u201cforward-looking institutional change\u201d.<\/p>\n He said the conflict with India exposed that Pakistan\u2019s command model was rooted in a 1970s framework, unsuitable for \u201cmulti-domain, hybrid warfare of the 21st century\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amendment is not about \u2018fixing what is broken\u2019 but about modernising what is functioning to ensure sustained effectiveness in future contingencies,\u201d Saeed told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Other critics, including former senior officials and security analysts, believe the amendment is less about modernisation and more about institutional consolidation.<\/p>\n They argue that creating the CDF post cements the army\u2019s dominance over the other branches.<\/p>\n Many question why the command structure should be overhauled when, by the government\u2019s own narrative, the existing system delivered what Pakistan claims was an \u201coutright victory\u201d\u00a0against India.<\/p>\n A retired three-star general who served in senior roles before retiring in 2019 said the abolished CJCSC role, despite being largely symbolic, provided a mechanism for balancing perspectives across the army, navy and air force.<\/p>\n \u201cThe PAF and PN may lose autonomy in strategic planning and most probably senior promotions, which has the potential to breed resentment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese risks institutional imbalance, undermining the very cohesion the amendment claims to enhance,\u201d the former general added.<\/p>\n The CJCSC \u2013 a four-star post and the principal military adviser to the prime minister \u2013 can theoretically be filled by any service, but the last non-army officer to hold the position was Air Chief Marshal Feroz Khan in 1997.<\/p>\n Security analyst Majid Nizami said that while the amendment aims to codify five-star ranks, it may create challenges for \u201ccohesion and synergy\u201d among the services.<\/p>\n If the goal was to modernise warfare strategy, he argued, there should have been a dedicated officer focused solely on integration, not the army chief assuming dual authority.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lack of clarity on rules and terms of reference for the CDF,\u201d Nizami said.<\/p>\n Shah, the Georgetown academic and author of The Army and Democracy, said the amendment \u201cformalises the de facto power\u201d of the COAS over the other branches.<\/p>\n Saeed, the former navy official who retired in 2022, however, disagreed with critics, arguing that the amendment simply clarifies the CDF\u2019s strategic coordination role.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amendment retains the PAF and PN\u2019s distinct command structures within their domains of responsibility, and the CDF\u2019s function is limited to integration at the strategic level, not administrative control or operational interference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He added that claims of \u201carmy dominance\u201d stem from \u201clegacy perceptions, not from constitutional reality.\u201d<\/p>\n The amendment also codifies the army\u2019s control of Pakistan\u2019s nuclear programme, including research, development and deployment, responsibilities that fall under the strategic command structure.<\/p>\n The former three-star general who spoke to Al Jazeera said the new system\u2019s operational details remain unclear. Under the current model, the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) manages Pakistan\u2019s ballistic and cruise missile programmes and nuclear assets.<\/p>\n Nizami said that although the CJCSC nominally oversaw the SPD, operational authority has long rested with the army. The amendment now formalises this reality.<\/p>\n Saeed, however, countered by arguing that in effect, even with the changes, \u201cthe entire nuclear enterprise operates under civilian-led oversight with constitutional clarity\u201d.<\/p>\n Critics have described the amendment as a \u201cconstitutional surrender\u201d by political parties to the military, and an attempt to institutionalise the \u201csupremacy of the uniform over the ballot\u201d.<\/p>\n It also comes at a time when Field Marshal Munir\u2019s public profile has risen significantly. He has undertaken multiple foreign trips, including several to the United States, and has been described by President Donald Trump as his \u201cfavourite field marshal\u201d.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, jailed for the past two years, accuses Munir of orchestrating the crackdown on him and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), since their ouster in 2022 through a no-confidence vote \u2013 a charge that the military has rejected outright.<\/p>\n In Pakistan\u2019s February 2024 election, the PTI was barred from contesting as a party. But its candidates, contesting independently,\u00a0secured the most seats even though they failed to secure a majority. Instead, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formed the government with allies. The government and military rejected widespread accusations of election rigging.<\/p>\n Shah argued that the political class supported the amendment out of necessity.<\/p>\n \u201cLacking democratic legitimacy and faced with the political challenge posed by the PTI and Khan, the ruling PML-N government sees Munir as the key guarantor of their power and political interests,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Nizami, the Lahore-based analyst, meanwhile, said that separate appointments to the posts of the CDF and the army chief would have made more sense if the intent was to strengthen the military structure and balance. The amendment, he warned, could lead to \u201cinstitutional imbalance instead of institutional synergy\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Islamabad, Pakistan \u2013 Pakistan has codified the most ambitious restructure of its military and judiciary in decades after President Asif Ali Zardari signed his assent to ratify the country\u2019s 27th Constitutional Amendment on Thursday. The amendment, which passed in both houses of parliament earlier in the week amid opposition protests and criticism from a range […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
A new command structure<\/h2>\n
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Military dominance \u2013 and the role of the India conflict<\/h2>\n
Fears of imbalance<\/h2>\n
Control of nuclear command<\/h2>\n
Political fallout<\/h2>\n
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