Lahore, November 15, 2025: Lahore High Court (LHC) judge Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza has resigned from his post citing “personal reasons”, according to sources on Saturday.
Insiders confirmed that Justice Mirza submitted his resignation to President Asif Ali Zardari. Ranked fifth in seniority at the LHC, he also served as a member of the court’s administration committee.
Justice Mirza was appointed as an additional judge in 2014 and was due to retire on March 6, 2028.
His departure comes only two days after Parliament approved the 27th Constitutional Amendment, which introduces sweeping changes to Pakistan’s judicial and military structures. The revised amendment fine-tunes the framework of the newly created Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) and clarifies titles and rankings of the country’s top judges, while omitting several controversial oath-related provisions earlier proposed by the Senate.
Justice Mirza’s resignation adds to the growing institutional unease triggered by the 27th Amendment, coming shortly after Supreme Court Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah stepped down in protest.
Both judges issued strongly worded letters denouncing the amendment as a “grave assault on the Constitution of Pakistan”, accusing it of undermining judicial independence and subordinating the judiciary to executive influence.
In a detailed 13-page letter, Justice Shah argued that the amendment dismantles the Supreme Court’s authority by elevating the FCC above it, leaving the apex court “truncated and diminished”. He said he could not continue serving in a court “stripped of its constitutional voice”, adding that remaining in office would amount to endorsing a constitutional wrong.
Justice Minallah, in his resignation letter, said the Constitution he swore to uphold “no longer exists” and now survives only as a shadow. He lamented that prior warnings he shared with the Chief Justice went unheeded amid “selective silence and inaction”.
Reacting to the resignations, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah said that while the judges were “respectable”, their letters amounted to “political speeches”. He dismissed their allegations as “unconstitutional” and demanded they substantiate their claim that the Supreme Court had been fractured.
The resignations have deepened the national debate over the future of judicial independence and constitutional order, as the country continues to grapple with the far-reaching consequences of the 27th Amendment.
