ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has fixed its three-month summer vacation for 2026 under the newly framed Supreme Court Rules 2025, even as debate continues within the top court over the scope and regulation of judges` leave.

The annual vacation will run from June 15 to Sept 14, 2026, under Rule 4 of Order II of the new rules, which replaced the 1980 framework.

A full court meeting on Monday, presided over by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi and attended by 19 of the 24 sittingjudges,approved the rules.

The judges agreed that the new rules, described as a living document, will be subject to review and amendment as needed.

Judicial leave has already become a contentious issue. In his address at the opening of the new judicial year on Monday, the CJP noted that while judges may take holidays during annual vacations, routine leave requests during the working year fall within his discretion underthe stated criteria.

`The notification is a kind of forerunner for judges to accumulate and plan their holidays for the next vacations in advance,` commented a senior counsel on condition of anonymity.

According to the SC notification, offices will remain open during the vacations except on public holidays. Urgent and criminal cases, along with matters fixed under the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023 and Article 191A of the Constitution, will continue before available benches as directed by the three-judge committee.

The July 29 General Standing Order (GSO), issued under the Supreme Court Judges (Leave, Pension and Privileges) Order 1997, also uploaded on the court`s website, empowered the CJP to approve leave with due diligence in the interest of public service.It required alltypes of leave to be applied for in advance andsupported by cogentreasons.

For judges proceeding abroad, a noobjection certificate is mandatory. Private foreign visits should be confined to summer or winter vacations, except in cases of pilgrimages, official nominations, awards, medical emergencies, or children`s graduation ceremonies. Judges on leave must provide current contact details, and in case of official visits abroad, the Foreign Ministry will arrange facilitation and protocol, according to the GSO.

In response, senior puisne judge Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah wrote a seven-page letter to the CJP on Sept 4.

He expressed surprise that, for the first time, the GSO described judges as being at the whole-time disposal of the state language he termed wholly alien to a constitutional court.

He stressed that judges are not regimented officers but independent under the Constitution.

Justice Shah also noted that the GSO restricted ex-Pakistan leave to five categories, which are not envisaged in the Presidential Order No. 2 of 1997. He regretted that even invitations from leading global institutions such as Yale and Harvard universities and recognised professional bodies like the New York City Bar Association had been refused on what he described as flimsy grounds.

`Such engagements are not personal leisure but opportunities to carry the institutional presence of this court to global forums, enriching jurisprudence and credibility,` the letter stated.

Justice Shah maintained that leave could only justifiably be refused where a part-heard case cannot be adjourned, urgent administrative duty requires presence, or a judge is neglecting work. He regretted that leave was being denied even when none of these conditions applied, apparently to enforce compliance and limit independent judges from addressing international forums.

`Such arbitrary denials betray a deep institutional insecurity,` Justice Shah had observed.