Why Asim Munir Remains Immune To Action, Accountability Amid Rising Speculation Over Imran Khan

Last Updated:November 29, 2025, 11:23 IST

Pakistan’s former prime minister’s condition remains unclear, but the 27th Amendment ensures the army chief’s authority and immunity remain firmly intact

Imran Khan’s supporters have already started demanding that he be freed from Adiala Jail as they fear a threat to his life. (IMAGE: REUTERS)

For days, Pakistan has been swirling with rumours that former prime minister Imran Khan has been tortured, gravely injured or even killed inside Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail. Officials keep insisting he is “safe and secure", but they have not produced him in public or allowed recent family or legal visits, despite court orders. That information vacuum has collided with an extraordinary security build-up around the prison, deepening public suspicion.

Adiala has been placed under one of the highest alerts in recent years. Intelligence sources told News18 the prison “could be attacked anytime". Around 2,500 additional personnel have been deployed around the jail; new check-posts have come up in the Dahgal area, at multiple jail gates, Factory Naka and the Gorakhpur belt of Rawalpindi.

Police and paramilitary units are in full anti-riot gear, carrying both rubber and live ammunition, tear-gas launchers, shields and batons. Similar alerts have gone out for Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore and Mach Central Jail near Quetta, where other Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders and activists are held.

All this is happening as Khan’s party, PTI, prepares nationwide protests outside Adiala and the Islamabad High Court, and as the question “Where is Imran Khan?" grows louder.

In an ordinary constitutional set-up, any harm to a former prime minister in custody would almost automatically raise the prospect of an inquiry that leads right up the security chain of command. In today’s Pakistan, that chain stops at a man whose position has just been rewritten into the Constitution in a way that makes him extremely hard to touch: Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir.

On Thursday, 27 November, Munir took charge as Pakistan’s first Chief of Defence Forces, or CDF, a post created by the controversial 27th Amendment to the 1973 Constitution. The amendment was cleared by the Assembly on 12 November, passed by the Senate on 13 November, and signed into law the same day by President Asif Ali Zardari. It does far more than change military designations. It rewires how power, oversight and accountability work at the very top of the state.

What The 27th Amendment Actually Changed

At the heart of the amendment is a complete restructuring of Pakistan’s higher defence set-up. Article 243 has been altered to create the office of Chief of Defence Forces, a new apex military post that will always be held by the serving army chief. The CDF now stands formally above the heads of the air force and navy and is explicitly described as commanding all three services.

The earlier post of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, created in the mid-1970s as a tri-services coordinating role, has been abolished, effective upon the retirement of General Sahir Shamshad Mirza on 27 November.

This is not just about status. Control of the overall tri-services framework has been shifted from the President and Cabinet to the CDF. For the first time, the already dominant army chief is placed unambiguously at the apex of Pakistan’s military structure by constitutional design.

The amendment also introduces a new position responsible for Pakistan’s nuclear forces: the Commander of the Strategic Command. The prime minister will formally appoint this commander, but only from among army generals and on the advice of the army chief or CDF.

In practice, that means the army, and ultimately Munir, will have a decisive say in who runs Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal, diminishing the collective character of the Command Authority.

Alongside this restructuring of the command chain, the amendment confers sweeping personal protections on top military brass. Officers elevated to five-star ranks – such as Field Marshal, Marshal of the Air Force or Admiral of the Fleet – are guaranteed that they will retain their rank, privileges and uniform for life. They can be removed only through a process akin to impeachment, requiring a two-thirds parliamentary majority. The same package extends to the air force and navy chiefs in connection with their roles in recent operations.

Crucially, these five-star officers receive explicit constitutional immunity. The legal protections go further than those available to the president or prime minister under Article 248. Once an officer enters this category, he acquires lifelong protection from criminal prosecution or civil proceedings for acts performed in office, unless Parliament itself first strips that immunity. The bar for such a move is deliberately high.

At the same time, the amendment is part of a broader effort to reshape the judiciary’s role. It establishes a Federal Constitutional Court to hear all constitutional matters, including interpretation of the basic law and disputes between the federation and provinces. This shifts constitutional review away from the Supreme Court, demoting it from its role as the final arbiter on constitutional questions.

The head of the new court outranks the Chief Justice of Pakistan in protocol and serves until the age of 68, three years longer than a Supreme Court judge.

Earlier changes had already curbed the Supreme Court’s powers, including its ability to take suo motu notice. Critics say the accumulated effect is to bring constitutional review closer to the executive, which itself functions in close alignment with the military establishment.

Several judges who had clashed with the government or raised concerns about military overreach have already stepped aside or spoken of the Supreme Court being effectively “abolished" in its traditional role. The net result is a system in which challenging the legal foundations of the 27th Amendment, or testing actions taken under its cover, becomes far more difficult.

Munir’s New Role As CDF And Why It Matters Now

Within this new framework, Asim Munir is not just another army chief. He has been promoted to Field Marshal, given a fresh five-year tenure as Chief of Defence Forces, and placed in a position where he sits formally above the air and naval chiefs. Before the amendment, his term had already been extended once, from the usual three years to five, taking his retirement date to 27 November 2027. The CDF appointment resets that clock; he is now guaranteed to remain at the apex of the military structure until at least 2030, with the door open to reappointment beyond that if the political leadership agrees.

The nuclear command and key high-command appointments are now routed through structures he effectively controls. The planned post of Vice Chief of Army Staff, for example, will be filled on the CDF’s recommendation before being approved by the federal government, significantly reducing civilian discretion.

On top of this, Munir’s five-star status brings the lifetime immunity described in the amendment. Even when he eventually steps down from active command, he will keep his rank, his privileges and a constitutional shield that places him above ordinary legal processes. Any attempt to question his actions in office, whether through criminal law or civil litigation, would be blocked unless Parliament first lifts that immunity with a two-thirds vote.

How This Insulates Him Even If Imran Khan Is Harmed In Jail

It is this combination of structural authority and personal protection that makes the 27th Amendment central to any discussion of Imran Khan’s fate in custody.

If the worst rumours around Adiala Jail were to come true and Khan were to be seriously harmed or killed, public and political pressure would inevitably focus on who controlled the security grid and who benefitted from his extended isolation. In previous eras, that could have led to probes that, at least on paper, might have reached the highest levels of the military and the state.

Under the new arrangement, the man at the top of that pyramid sits behind several layers of constitutional insulation. Any serious attempt to hold Munir accountable through the courts would run straight into the protections granted to five-star officers, and any constitutional challenge to the amendment itself would be heard not by the old Supreme Court but by a newly created Constitutional Court whose architecture has been shaped by the same ruling coalition that pushed the amendment through.

In other words, the 27th Amendment has been crafted in such a way that even an extreme political shock, such as custodial harm to Pakistan’s most popular opposition leader, is unlikely to shake the man who now sits at the apex of the country’s security system.

While the streets churn over Imran Khan’s condition and Adiala remains on lockdown, the Constitution has already been rewritten to ensure that Asim Munir’s position remains almost entirely beyond reach.

News explainers Why Asim Munir Remains Immune To Action, Accountability Amid Rising Speculation Over Imran Khan

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