During the tenure of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government, after long consultations and numerous meetings with various political parties, the 18th Constitutional Amendment was successfully passed. The head of the constitutional committee, PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, worked tirelessly to secure a consensus on the amendment. At the time, PPP leader Sardar Latif Khosa accused the government of distorting and ruining the constitution with this amendment. The 18th Amendment was approved due to the personal interest of then-President Asif Zardari, granting complete autonomy to the provinces. This shifted the balance of power, making the provinces financially and administratively independent, while the federal government became dependent on the provinces for revenue.
After the assassination of PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto, the party enjoyed significant public sympathy, and Asif Zardari was determined to take all political parties along with him. Following the departure of General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) joined the PPP government for the first time. Musharraf had mistreated the judiciary, removing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and dozens of other judges. Nawaz Sharif joined the new government with the aim of restoring the judiciary, which had been dismissed. No one anticipated that the very judiciary for which a long march was held to reinstate would become so powerful that even those who had restored it would eventually be affected by its decisions.
Both major political parties, PPP and PML-N, which either supported or opposed the restoration of the judiciary, were affected in the future by its rulings. Their governments were dissolved, and their prime ministers disqualified. The judiciary, post-restoration, asserted itself over parliament. After its restoration, the judiciary first disqualified PPP’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, and later Nawaz Sharif, who had taken credit for restoring the judiciary, was also affected by court rulings. The PPP prime minister was disqualified for five years for refusing to write a letter against his president, and Nawaz Sharif was later disqualified for life. Both parties, having suffered under judicial rulings, played a key role in new constitutional amendments in a united front.
During the PPP government, the judiciary, through administrative interference, kept the government under pressure. At that time, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had little political significance, but it supported Iftikhar Chaudhry, though later Imran Khan became an opponent of Chaudhry.
Mian Saqib Nisar later became Chief Justice during the PML-N government, and some judges, along with Nisar, were seen as opponents of Nawaz Sharif and supporters of PTI. In 2014, PTI’s sit-in received support from the higher powers and the judiciary. Although Nawaz Sharif’s name did not appear in the Panama Papers, a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was formed against him. When no evidence against Sharif was found in the Panama case, he was disqualified on the grounds of not declaring a salary from his son under the Iqama (work permit) issue.
For the first time in the history of the judiciary, a special monitoring judge was appointed to ensure Nawaz Sharif’s conviction. Since then, the number of PTI-supporting judges in the judiciary has increased, with some openly favoring Imran Khan. In one case where disqualification was possible, these judges saved Imran Khan from disqualification and declared him “truthful and honest” without being asked, while labeling Nawaz Sharif with derogatory terms such as the “Sicilian Mafia.”