Pakistan’s powerful army chief secured expanded powers and lifelong legal immunity Wednesday when lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment that gives him sweeping authority over all military branches and limits the independence of the country’s highest court.
Opposition politicians, judges and independent experts condemned the move as a stark sign of democratic erosion in Pakistan and a slide into authoritarianism.
Syed Asim Munir, the army chief whom President Trump called his “favorite field marshal,” is set to become Pakistan’s chief of defense forces by the end of the month, a new title positioning him over the navy and air force as well.
Under the new constitutional amendment, the field marshal and Pakistan’s president, the country’s symbolic head of state who also holds important powers over appointments and interim governments, will also be granted lifelong immunity from any legal prosecution.
“He’s brought control of the military under himself,” Ayesha Siddiqa, an expert on the Pakistani military, said about Field Marshal Munir.
Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country of 240 million people, has ebbed and flowed between civilian and military rule since its creation in 1947.
The last army chief to overtly run the country was Pervez Musharraf, who staged a coup in 1999 and was later named president until 2008. Since then, civilian governments have been nominally in control. But the military’s grip on Pakistan’s political and economic affairs has become so deeply entrenched that military and government officials have referred to the country’s political system as a “hybrid rule” between the two.
The 27th amendment to the Pakistani Constitution, passed on Wednesday, further tilts the balance toward the military.
“The civil-military hybrid system is a misalliance and destined to the same fate as most unequal marriages,” said Shuja Nawaz, a veteran security analyst on Pakistani and South Asian affairs.
Besides the expanded powers enjoyed by Field Marshal Munir, a newly created court, whose judges will be nominated by the executive, will become the country’s most powerful. It will operate above the current Supreme Court, which has at times acted as a check on army chiefs and governmental leaders but will now be reduced to handling civilian and criminal cases.
“Crony judges sitting in that new court will now rubber-stamp any judgment that the government would like to get passed,” said Salahuddin Ahmed, a lawyer based in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. Saad Rasool, another lawyer and public affairs commentator, said the reforms would cause “the collapse of an independent judiciary.”
Under the amendment, high court judges would be forced to resign if they reject a transfer from one province to another decided by Pakistan’s political leadership.
Supporters of the changes, including the governing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and some other political groups, say they were necessary to modernize the military’s command structure in the wake of a military clash with India in May, and to alleviate a backlog of judiciary cases in Pakistani courts.
“War is changing, and the Pakistani military needs to have a robust decision-making apparatus,” said Qamar Cheema, the executive director of Sanober Institute, an Islamabad-based research center. “This new position of Chief of Defense Forces provides operational efficiency.”
But critics say the amendment enshrines the power of the military in the constitution, as well as the army chief’s control over branches of the military, while tying Pakistani courts to political whims even further.
The Pakistani military and the Ministry of Information did not respond to a request for comment.
The reforms were passed in Parliament by an overwhelming majority this week.
Two opposition parties opposed the bill, including the party of the former prime minister and cricket star Imran Khan, who remains in prison on a corruption conviction. He and his party deny the accusations and say the sentence was spurred by his public criticism of the military. Lawmakers from Mr. Khan’s party boycotted the vote in both chambers this week.
With Mr. Khan and his party’s main leaders in jail, the political opposition has been muted. Protests have been banned. Widespread accusations of election rigging by the military last year have gone ignored. Columnists and media executives say they face increased pressure and censorship from the government and military establishment.
Supporters of the military say it is the only institution holding together a country crippled by debt, facing a poverty rate of 25 percent — its highest in nearly a decade — and beleaguered by some of the lowest foreign investment in South Asia.
Field Marshal Munir, 57, was promoted to field marshal from general after the May conflict with India. Law Minister Azam Tarar has said the commander would be granted constitutional protection under the new amendment “because he is the hero of the whole nation.”
His stern stature has been featured on posters in Islamabad, the capital, and giant billboards across Pakistan’s largest cities.
Field Marshal Munir has also fostered a newly warm relationship with the United States. He lunched in June with President Trump and met him again in the Oval Office in September. Pakistan has courted the Trump administration with promises of access to critical minerals and strengthened counterterrorism cooperation.
The Trump administration has vowed to “advance the U.S.-Pakistan relationship,” according to a social media post by the State Department on Saturday after Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States met with Paul Kapur, the newly appointed top State Department official for South and Central Asia.
The constitutional change comes as Pakistan’s military is engaged on multiple fronts. It is fighting two armed insurgencies in its western provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and threatening to go to war with neighboring Afghanistan over accusations that Afghanistan harbors and funds militants attacking Pakistan. The Afghan government has denied the accusations.
The Pakistani government has also been debating whether Pakistan should send peacekeeping troops to an international force to be deployed in Gaza.
In letting Field Marshal Munir keep his title for life, as well as any equivalent for the navy and air force, the constitutional amendment widens the gap between the military’s top leadership and lower ranks, said Mr. Nawaz, the security analyst.
“There hasn’t been any rumbling in Parliament, but the perks and privileges given for life might create some rumblings within the military, especially among the rank and file who, like other Pakistanis, are struggling to make ends meet,” Mr. Nawaz said.
The constitutional reform also enshrines a power grab by the Pakistani Army over the other branches of the military.
The army, navy and air force have often competed for power, but since the presidency of General Musharraf, the army has held the upper hand, said Ms. Siddiqa, the military expert.
General Musharraf tried to pass measures that would have allowed him to hold office indefinitely. But he was unsuccessful even with a Parliament elected under martial law.
The moves by the current military establishment have been more subtle, Ms. Siddiqa added, but they might have more sweeping effects, as Field Marshal Munir will now keep his title for life.
“It’s not going to be martial law,” Ms. Siddiqa said, “but, in effect, it’s an even more direct military rule.”
Salman Masood and Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting.
Elian Peltier is an international correspondent for The Times, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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