How female judges are judged

At courts, women face an equal number of challenges. Despite the limited number of female judges appointed at superior courts, a judicial policy announced in 2009 by then-chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had no mention of reserving seats for female judges. “Women are rarely appointed as Supreme Court or High Court judges. This is because the criterion of assessment for women has deliberately been made difficult,” says advocate Shah. Male lawyers even avoid their cases being heard before Justice Ashraf Jehan at Sindh High Court of Karachi, she claims. The reason for this is that male lawyers are not confident about her legal knowledge and distrust her competence to decide cases on the basis of merit, she adds.

There have been times when female judges have passed judgments in favour of women at lower courts, especially in family law cases, says advocate Hussain, citing a possiblereason for distrusting female judges. But when it comes to the treatment of female judges, Hussain says, “Women are prone to verbal harassment at courts from fellow male lawyers and, most of the time, this goes unreported.” Therefore, he does not encourage his family members to enter the legal profession.

Despite 35 years of experience in the field, even advocate Mehdi discouraged her daughter from pursuing a career in law. She agrees that there is rampant gender discrimination at courts in Pakistan. For instance, there is currently no representation of women in constitutional institutions, such as the Federal Shariat Court — which has the power to enact new laws or strike off old ones from the statute books — and the Council of Islamic Ideology, which run parallel to the judiciary. Since women’s views are not taken into account while making or amending laws, this makes them vulnerable on the whole.