In this post, we mention a brief introduction to the Constitution of Pakistan and its amendments.
The constitution of Pakistan is the supreme law of Pakistan. It was created with the help all the parties at the time on April 19th,1973 and later ratified on August 14th, 1973.
Since the constitution is not a perfect law, it requires amendments overtime to make it compatible and updated with today’s needs. By now, there have been 26 amendments in the Constitution of Pakistan. Below is a nice table with all the amendments to date:
I have given a short talk on the Amendments of Pakistan and their links are below.
| Constitutional Amendments:- | Date | |
| 1- | Redefined the boundaries of Pakistan and removed references to East Pakistan. | 1974 |
| 2- | Defined a Muslim and declared the status of Ahmadis as minority and ‘non-Muslim’. | 1974 |
| 3- | Extended the period of preventive detention. | 1975 |
| 4- | Decreed additional seats for minorities, it also deprived courts of the power to grant bail to any person detained under any preventive detention. | 1975 |
| 5- | Widened the scope of restriction on the High Courts. | 1976 |
| 6- | Provided that Chief Justice of Supreme Court will be retired at the age of 65 and High Court judges at age 62. | 1976 |
| 7- | Enables the Prime Minister to obtain a vote of confidence of the people of Pakistan. | 1977 |
| 8- | Changed Pakistan’s government from a Parliamentary system to a Semi-presidential system by giving the President a number of additional powers. | 1985 |
| 9- | Bill to impose Shariah law as the supreme law of land. The bill was passed by Senate but could never be passed by National Assembly owing to the latter’s dissolution. | 1985 |
| 10- | Fixed the interval period between sessions of the National Assembly to not exceed 130 days. | 1987 |
| 11- | Revision of the reserved seats for women in the National and the provincial assemblies. The bill was withdrawn in 1992. | 1989 |
| 12- | Created Speedy Trial Court for 3 years. | 1991 |
| 13- | Stripped the President of Pakistan of his reserve power to dissolve the National Assembly of Pakistan, and thereby triggering new elections and dismissing the Prime Minister. | 1997 |
| 14- | Allowed members of parliament to be dismissed if they defect. | 1997 |
| 15- | Bill to impose Shariah law as supreme law of land. Was never passed. | 1998 |
| 16- | Increased the term appointed for quota system as per 1973 Constitution from 20 to 40 years. | 1999 |
| 17- | Made changes dealing with the office of the President and the reversal of the effects of the Thirteenth Amendment. | 2003 |
| 18- | Removed the power of President of Pakistan to dissolve the Parliament unilaterally. | 2010 |
| 19- | Provided for the appointment of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and made amendments in the number of members of the parliamentary committee for the appointment of Chief Electoral Officers at Election Commission of Pakistan. | 2010 |
| 20- | For Free and Fair Elections. | 2012 |
| 21- | For Speedy Trial Military Courts to deal with terrorism. | 2015 |
| 22- | ECP powers deputed to Chief Election Commissioner | 2016 |
| 23- | The 23rd Amendment was passed to re-establish the military courts for further two years till 6 January 2019. In 2015, National Assembly passed the 21st Amendment and created the military courts for the period of 2 years. The period of two years was expired on 6 January 2017 hence this 23rd Amendment was passed to re-establish the military courts for further two years till 6 January 2019. At the end of this period all the amendments will be expired/removed automatically. | 2017 |
| 24- | Reallocation of National Assembly seats among federating units and allowing election authorities to update boundaries of constituencies based on provisional results of 2017 Census of Pakistan. | 2017 |
| 25- | Merges Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | 2018 |
| 26- | The seats of tribal districts in NA will retain at 12 while their seats in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been increased to 24 from 16. | 2019 |
26th Amendment of Constitution of Pakistan 1973:
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