The Changing Constitutional Landscape of Suo Motu Jurisdiction in Pakistan: Judicial Authority, Separation of Powers, and the 26th Constitutional Amendment

Abstract

This article examines the Suo motu jurisdiction associated with Article 184(3) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, and compares its exercise before and after the Constitution (Twenty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2024. It argues that Suo motu power was never a freestanding clause of the Constitution. It grew out of a judicial reading of original jurisdiction, relaxed standing, and the administrative authority of the Chief Justice. This study served constitutionalism where it enforced fundamental rights against state inaction. It strained constitutionalism where it concentrated agenda-setting in one office, displaced ordinary forums, and left no appeal. Parliament first responded through the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, which the Court largely upheld. The 26th Amendment then constitutionalized a sharper limit: the Court may not make an order, direction, or declaration on its own, or in the nature of Suo motu, beyond the contents of an application under Article 184(3). It also confined Article 184, specified constitutional appeals, and advisory jurisdiction to Constitutional Benches nominated by a reconstituted Judicial Commission of Pakistan. The amendment realigns constitutionalism toward parliamentary control, procedural legality, and a thinner model of judicial activism. It simultaneously raises classic risks to judicial independence and to access to justice. The article maps those principles and concludes that the post-amendment order is more textually constrained, but not yet settled in practice.