A panel of analysts and rights advocates in Berlin warned that Pakistan’s newly adopted 27th Constitutional Amendment will weaken judicial independence and expand executive authority, reducing protections for citizens already facing political exclusion and human rights abuses.
The discussion, moderated by former BBC correspondent Sahar Baloch, featured political analyst Rafiullah Kakar and Abdullah Abbas, Executive Director of the Human Rights Council of Balochistan (HRCB).
Kakar said the amendment “fundamentally reshapes” the relationship between the judiciary and the executive by limiting the courts’ authority to review or challenge executive action.
He said the change will restrict the ability of citizens, activists and civil society organisations to seek legal remedy. “Rights are not formally abolished,” he said, “but their enforceability collapses when courts are stripped of authority.”
He added that the amendment undermines what he described as the 1973 Constitution’s role as an inclusive political framework in which Pakistan’s ethnic and religious minorities were recognised as stakeholders.
Abbas said the impact in Balochistan, a region where rights groups have long documented enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, would be particularly severe. “This law applies across Pakistan, but Balochistan is a unique case,” he said.
He said legal institutions in Balochistan have already failed to provide meaningful protection. “Years of dehumanisation and state-driven narrative-building against dissent have enabled — and often justified — the gravest human rights violations,” he said.
According to HRCB data cited at the event, 1,455 people were subjected to enforced disappearance in Balochistan in 2025 and 538 were killed. The organisation recorded 92 people allegedly killed in custody and 55 killed in what it described as “staged encounters.”
“In Balochistan, the Constitution barely exists in practice,” Abbas said. “With the 27th Amendment, even the little remaining hope for legal remedy is being extinguished.” He said the change reinforces a system in which victims have no meaningful avenue to seek justice.
Abbas also said recent amendments to Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act effectively legalise enforced disappearances. “What China did to the Uyghurs through lawfare and surveillance is now being replicated in Balochistan,” he said, calling the development “the institutionalisation of repression.”
The panel concluded that without strong civic mobilisation, legal advocacy and international scrutiny, the amendment risks eroding what remains of Pakistan’s democratic checks and balances.