In a sweeping indictment of Pakistan’s judiciary, a new joint report reveals that the nation’s courts have been deliberately transformed into instruments of state repression and political leverage. According to a July 10, 2026, analysis by Andrew Wilson, the report—authored by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)—details how constitutional amendments and intelligence interference have effectively erased judicial independence. The document, titled *Under the Bench: Mapping Corruption Risks in Pakistan’s Justice System*, demonstrates that the legal system now functions primarily to protect power rather than uphold the law.

Drawing on 30 anonymized interviews with judges, lawyers, activists, and journalists, the FIDH and HRCP researchers concluded that the systemic abuses “may amount to grand corruption.” The crisis is exacerbated by massive systemic dysfunction, with approximately 2.4 million cases currently pending nationwide. The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index reflects this collapse, ranking Pakistan 101st out of 143 nations in criminal justice and 129th in civil justice. In this environment, foundational legal processes are commodified; a First Information Report—the document initiating a criminal case—can be routinely delayed or accelerated for a price, while evidence is quietly manipulated along the way.

This dysfunction has been actively weaponized through legislative restructuring. The passage of the 26th and 27th constitutional amendments in 2024 and 2025 severely stripped the judiciary of its autonomy. The amendments granted parliament members a role in judicial selection, established a new Federal Constitutional Court whose leadership is chosen by the prime minister, and empowered a judicial council to remove judges for the vaguely defined offense of “inefficiency.” Interviewees revealed that intelligence agencies maintain dossiers on judges’ financial improprieties to hold in reserve as leverage. Judges who fail to comply with state interests routinely face punitive postings, signaling to lower courts that survival depends on obedience.

The human cost of this captured system is heavily documented through recent high-profile prosecutions. In August, human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, were accused of “cyber terrorism” following social media posts criticizing the military and supporting Baloch and Pashtun activists. Chattha’s sole offense was reposting his wife’s statements. After an Islamabad special court revoked their bail, authorities proceeded with what Amnesty International condemned as a “baseless trial.” By January, both were convicted and sentenced to up to 17 years in prison. Their subsequent appeals have faced deliberate obstruction, with dropped hearings, prosecution absences, and the Supreme Court ignoring its own deadlines.

A similarly punitive approach was applied to Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a leading organizer against enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Placed in administrative detention last spring, she was burdened with dozens of sedition and terrorism charges. In June, following a largely secret jail trial devoid of direct evidence linking her to violent incitement, she and fellow activist Sibghat Ullah Shah Jee were sentenced to life imprisonment. Rights groups argue the state is utilizing anti-terrorism laws to crush a movement rather than fight terrorism. On July 8, 2026, UN Special Procedures posted on X to “condemn life sentence against Baloch human rights defender Dr. Mahrang Baloch as grave injustice.” The UN experts added: “These convictions risk silencing independent voices in #Balochistan and further shrinking civic space.”

Beyond targeting political dissenters, the compromised judiciary systemically penalizes the vulnerable and marginalized. In 2024 alone, nearly 800 individuals—predominantly from poor and minority communities—were detained on blasphemy charges. Driven by judges’ fears of extremist pressure and systemic evidentiary contradictions, conviction rates in these cases stand at around 95 percent. The report also highlights that freedom from torture is largely a function of wealth, as those unable to afford bribes are frequently tortured into confessions. The legal profession itself mirrors these inequities; women make up just 17 percent of enrolled lawyers and hold only 7 of 126 seats in the upper judiciary, an environment interviewees described as a patronage-driven “boys’ club.”

State anti-corruption watchdogs, including the National Accountability Bureau, the Federal Investigation Agency, and the Supreme Judicial Council, operate as mechanisms of selective punishment aimed at military critics. Journalists and whistleblowers attempting to expose these patterns face swift prosecution under defamation statutes and the same cyber-crime laws used against Mazari-Hazir.

Despite this comprehensive institutional capture, Wilson notes that activists and legal professionals continue to test the system. Drawing parallels to the historic lawyers’ movement that challenged General Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule, current mobilizations by bar associations suggest a resilient core within the legal community. Advocates are pushing to reverse the politicized amendments, protect whistleblowers, and rebuild a judiciary that holds power to account.