The Pakistan Judicial Commission (JCP) approved the elevation of Lahore High Court Justice Ayesha A. Malik to the Supreme Court on Thursday, making her the country’s first woman judge to sit on the apex court.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed presided over the JCP meeting at which Justice Malik’s elevation was approved by a vote of five to four.
This is the second time the JCP has met to discuss Justice Malik’s elevation. The commission rejected her elevation due to a lack of consensus during an extended meeting of the JCP on September 9, last year.
During that meeting, four members of the JCP’s eight-member delegation opposed the proposal to elevate Justice Malik, the LHC’s fourth most senior judge, while an equal number supported it.
At the time, Supreme Court Bar Association President Abdul Latif Afridi called for a nationwide protest to express outrage over what the legal community perceived as a disregard for the seniority principle in the appointment of judges to the apex court.
The same criticism was leveled this time, with the legal community urging the chief justice to reschedule Thursday’s JCP meeting. If the meeting is not called off, the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and all bar associations have declared a boycott of all court proceedings, from the supreme court to the lower courts.
