The Eighteenth Amendment at trial in Pakistan’s Supreme Court

ABSTRACT The Supreme Court of Pakistan plays an important mediatory role in managing political conflict. While there is a growing body of literature on the merits of the Eighteenth Amendment to Pakistan’s Constitution, not much has been written about how those changes have actually played out in practice before the courts. This paper tries to plug this gap by critically examining the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd v Federation of Pakistan. This paper argues that while the outcome is consistent with a general tendency of constitutional courts to centralize power, the expansive rule laid down by the Supreme Court does not square up with the spirit of the Eighteenth Amendment which was intended to resolve long-standing disputes between the centre and the provinces by conferring greater provincial autonomy.