PESHAWAR: Justice Musarrat Hilali will become the acting chief justice of the Peshawar High Court starting April 1, making history as the first woman to be appointed to the position.
This year, Pakistani women have achieved many firsts in the legal fraternity. In January, Pakistan appointed Justice Ayesha Malik as its first female Supreme Court judge. Last month, Pakistani lawyers Sabahat Rizvi and Rabbiya Bajwa made history by getting elected to the positions of secretary and vice president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association respectively.
“The President … is pleased to appoint Ms Justice Musarrat Hilali, being the most senior judge of the Peshawar High Court Peshawar, to act as Chief Justice of the said court with effect from April 1 2023 till the appointment of a regular chief justice by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan,” a notification from the law ministry said.
The Judicial Commission is a nine-member body that decides on the promotion of judges in Pakistan.
Justice Hilali was born in Peshawar on August 8, 1961, at the home of Mir Hilali, an activist with the Khudai Khedmatgar, a predominantly Pashtun nonviolent resistance movement known for its activism against the British Raj in colonial India. She studied law from Khyber Law College at Peshawar University and enrolled as an advocate at the district courts in 1983, going on to become a high court advocate in 1988 and an advocate of the Supreme Court in 2006.
Justice Hilali was the first elected female secretary of the Peshawar Bar Association from 1988-1989, vice president twice from 1992 to 1994, and the first female General Secretary from 1997-1998. She was also the first woman twice elected as executive member of the Supreme Court Bar Association from 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 respectively.
Justice Hilali was appointed the first female Additional Advocate General of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from November 2001 till March 2004, the first woman Chairperson of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Tribunal and the first female Ombudsperson for ‘Protection against the Harassment of Women in the Workplace.’
Justice Hilali is set to retire on August 7, 2023.
Senior Supreme Court advocate and member of the Pakistan Bar Association, Advocate Noor Alam Khan, said Justice Hilali had proved herself a “competent advocate” and her appointment was a “good sign for the people, especially for the women of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.”
He hailed her for her role as a women and human rights advocate in the conservative province where there were few women in her field.
“Justice Musarrat Hilali has always played her role in the support of democracy,” Khan said.
Activist and Peshawar High Court advocate Masooma Kulsoom Mir said women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were reluctant to become lawyers “due to social constraints” and the appointment of Justice Hilali would “play its role in breaking the cultural, economic and societal barriers women face when they join the field.”
“The appointment is a milestone achieved and Justice Musarrat Hilali will be an icon for aspiring female lawyers,” Mir said. “She is a source of inspiration and motivation for all of us practicing women lawyers.”
