Speaker’s choice |
IN his Women’s Day message, Chief Justice Yahya Afridi was direct: women’s rights are binding obligations that institutions must enforce in practice. Gender-responsive justice, he said, will sit at the centre of the judiciary’s reform agenda for 2026-27.
The sentiment is welcome. Rights mean little unless institutions give them effect. And few institutions shape Pakistan’s future more than the Judicial Commission of Pakistan. It decides by simple majority who sits on the superior courts and in turn, who interprets the law. For a country that is half women, commitments to gender-responsiveness in the judiciary must mean something in the JCP itself, if they are to mean anything at all.
The Constitution now acknowledges this. Through the 26th and 27th Amendments, parliament added a representational seat to the JCP: a woman, non‑Muslim, or technocrat, qualified for but not member of parliament, appointed by the Speaker of the National Assembly.
The rationale is obvious. The judiciary is one of the least inclusive institutions in Pakistan. It took 47 years to appoint a woman to a high court, 74 to reach the Supreme Court. Until now, gender has never officially factored in judicial appointments. And the........