FCC lacks power to review Supreme Court verdicts, rules CJ Aminuddin
Pakistan
The Federal Constitutional Court ruled it cannot hear appeals against final Supreme Court decisions, emphasizing limits on review and that private land disputes don’t qualify as public interest cases
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Thursday ruled that it cannot to hear the appeals filed against the final Supreme Court decisions.
Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan, in a written verdict, noted that the 27th Amendment does not grant the Federal Constitutional Court authority to review or oversee Supreme Court rulings.
The court emphasized that the Constitution did not allow endless litigation and that every legal dispute must eventually reach a conclusion.
It clarified that land compensation disputes, while legally significant, are private matters and did not fall under the extraordinary powers of Article 184(3), which are reserved for cases of public importance rather than individual grievances.
Rejecting a review petition against the Supreme Court’s September 12, 2024 order, Chief Justice Khan stated that final Supreme Court decisions cannot be reopened under the guise of corrective review.
Under Article 188, the right to review is limited, and once the Supreme Court denies a review, the matter is considered closed.
The case involved a dispute over land compensation between the petitioner and the Multan Development Authority, where the petitioner argued that a three-member Supreme Court bench had ruled in their favor in 2015, which was later overturned by a two-member bench in 2022.
