Athar Minallah | Pakistan

President Asif Ali Zardari has formally accepted the resignations of Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah, a day after both judges stepped down.

President Asif Ali Zardari has accepted the resignations of Supreme Court judges Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah, a post on the President’s official X account said on Friday. The two judges had handed in their resignations yesterday, hours after the contentious 27th Constitutional Amendment was signed into law by the president, describing the legislation as an affront to the judiciary and the 1973 Cons­titution. “I therefore resign as the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in full awareness of the reasons that compel it and in loyalty to the Constitution that has guided every step of my judicial life,” Justice Shah wrote in his 13-page resignation letter, issued in both English and Urdu. The letters were addressed to the president. Justice Shah had described the amendment as a “grave assault on the Constitution” and said the 27th Amendment dismantled the Supreme Court of Pakistan, subjugated the judiciary to executive control and struck at the “very heart of our constitutional democracy”....