A historic example has been set in Pakistan to promote women’s empowerment after the Chief Justice of Pakistan has nominated Justice Ayesha Malik of the Lahore High Court as a Supreme Court Judge for the first time in the 74-years history of Pakistan. A judicial commission session has been called on September 9 on her promotion to Supreme Court.
This is a landmark decision as Ayesha Malik will break the glass ceiling and also gave other women hope of many more decisions of the same kind. Justice Mushir Alam will be retiring on August 17, and she is likely to take his position. Justice Ayesha will be the first woman judge in the history of Pakistan to be promoted to the Supreme Court.
Justice Ayesha Malik was born in 1966. She has completed her basic education from schools in Paris, New York, and Karachi. She did her BCom from the Government College of Commerce and Economics, Karachi. Malik also studied law at Pakistan College of Law, Lahore. She added more feathers to her cap after she did LLM from Harvard Law School.
Additionally, Malik has also served with Fakhurddin G Ebrahim. Justice Malik has served in the high courts, district courts, banking courts, special tribunals, and arbitration tribunals. She has gained more recognition after her historic judgment back in June. She has proclaimed virginity tests for assessment of sexual assault survivors “illegal and against the Constitution of Pakistan.”
Moreover, in the 30-page judgment, the judge stated that the two-finger test (TFT) and hymen test have no medical basis or forensic value in cases of sexual violence and professed that virginity tests “offend the personal dignity of the female victim and therefore is against the right to life and right to dignity protected in Article 9 and 14 of the Constitution”.