Reporting snapshot · 2 November 2026. The ruling settles how the Federal Constitutional Court will treat Supreme Court precedent in its own cases, but not how the Supreme Court, the federal government or lower courts will respond. The main limitation is that only the passages quoted in published accounts of the eight-page judgment are available, so its reasoning on some points cannot yet be checked in full.
What the court decided
The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that judgments of the Supreme Court are not binding on it, holding instead that they carry “persuasive value” and may be followed where their reasoning is consistent with the law and the Constitution. The Express Tribune reported that the finding appears in an eight-page judgment written by Justice Aamer Farooq, who led a three-member bench hearing a review petition.
“The judgments of the Supreme Court are not binding on us, but carry persuasive value and where the jurisprudence laid down by it appeals or seems to be in consonance with the law and the Constitution, may be followed,” the judgment said, according to the newspaper. The bench applied the same approach to Supreme Court jurisprudence on leave to appeal from High Court orders under Article 199 of the Constitution, saying that line of authority was also not binding on the Federal Constitutional Court, though it could draw wisdom from it.
The ruling does not invalidate Supreme Court judgments or declare them unconstitutional. It defines their status inside a separate court created by the 27th Constitutional Amendment in 2025. That distinction is central to what the decision does and does not change: the Federal Constitutional Court is not rejecting the Supreme Court’s authority in the abstract, but setting the weight it will give Supreme Court reasoning when the two courts’ business overlaps.
The judgment also restates the limits of the Federal Constitutional Court’s own review jurisdiction. Review is confined to an error apparent on the face of the record or a mistake that would cause a miscarriage of justice, Dunya News reported. It is not a fresh hearing or another opportunity to reargue a case that has already been decided.
A narrower gate for review petitions
The court used the judgment to spell out the procedural consequences of that narrow jurisdiction. A party or its Advocate-on-Record must file a reasoned certificate stating that a review application is maintainable. A review petition must be accompanied by a security deposit of Rs50,000, which can be forfeited if the application is dismissed or found frivolous or vexatious. The court can impose costs of at least Rs25,000, and an Advocate-on-Record who files a frivolous application may face disciplinary proceedings.
The bench said review applications had become a routine step in litigation, often amounting to a rehearing rather than a challenge to a clear error. It said it may decide appropriate review applications by circulation, without an oral hearing.
Those rules matter beyond the courtroom. A review petition is the last formal chance to persuade the court that a decision contains a patent mistake, and the new conditions raise the cost and professional risk of using it as a delaying tactic. For litigants, the practical question is no longer only whether they disagree with a judgment, but whether they can point to an error on the record that meets the court’s threshold.
Leave to appeal and the Balochistan case
The judgment also explains the court’s appellate jurisdiction under Article 175F(1)(c), which was inserted by the 27th Amendment. Before the amendment, the Supreme Court exercised that jurisdiction under Article 185(3). The Federal Constitutional Court now hears petitions for leave to appeal from High Court decisions and orders made under Article 199.
The court said leave is not an appeal as of right. An application becomes an appeal only if leave is granted, and the rejection of a leave application does not necessarily endorse the High Court order being challenged. The court added that it is not required to give detailed reasons when refusing leave, and that a non-speaking order is not by itself a ground for review.
The same judgment dismissed a review petition filed by Balochistan Trading Company and ordered the forfeiture of its security deposit. According to Dunya News, the company had asked the court to restore its lease and possession, but the bench found no error apparent on the record and said the application repeated arguments already made.
Why two apex courts matter
The ruling is the latest attempt to answer a question that has followed the 27th Amendment since the Federal Constitutional Court began hearing cases: when a litigant relies on a Supreme Court precedent, which court’s understanding of that precedent governs? The new judgment says Supreme Court decisions are persuasive in the Federal Constitutional Court, not controlling. It leaves the court free to follow them, distinguish them or depart from them when it concludes they conflict with the Constitution.
That freedom could produce divergent lines of authority. A High Court judgment upheld by the Federal Constitutional Court may rest on reasoning the Supreme Court would treat differently, and a party that loses in one forum may see the other as a more favourable route. The judgment does not address forum shopping directly, but its practical effect will depend on how consistently the Federal Constitutional Court applies its own test.
The decision also adds a second layer of precedent for government departments, prosecutors and lower courts to track. The Federal Constitutional Court has already handled cases that were previously part of the Supreme Court’s appellate stream, including a challenge to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa emergency and governor’s rule, a sentence-suspension plea in the £190m Al-Qadir case, and a challenge to the super tax. KhabarWire’s account of the K-P challenge and its report on the Bushra Bibi sentence ruling set out how the court has been building that jurisdiction.
For readers, the immediate consequence is narrower than the headline suggests. The ruling does not stop anyone from citing a Supreme Court judgment in the Federal Constitutional Court, and it does not prevent the court from adopting Supreme Court reasoning. It changes the weight such citations carry and makes clear that the court regards itself as the final authority on its own review and leave-to-appeal business.
What is still uncertain
No response from the Supreme Court or the federal government was included in the published accounts. It is not yet clear whether either institution will issue a formal position, whether the government will adjust how it presents Supreme Court precedents in cases before the Federal Constitutional Court, or whether litigants will test the ruling in a case where the two courts’ approaches collide.
The judgment’s treatment of pending appeals is also unresolved. The court said Supreme Court jurisprudence is not binding, but it did not announce a blanket rule for cases already decided on the strength of that jurisprudence. Whether the court will reopen such decisions, distinguish them, or leave them undisturbed will become clearer as new petitions reach the bench.
For now, the ruling is a statement about the Federal Constitutional Court’s own hierarchy of authority. Its practical meaning will emerge in how the court treats the next case in which a litigant relies on a Supreme Court precedent, and in whether the Supreme Court accepts the arrangement or responds to it.
