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 consequences are real. An overwhelmingly male judiciary not only looks unrepresentative, it also shapes jurisprudence and intellectual thought. Men’s assumptions about women’s lives, bodies, experiences and credibility have, over time, become the ‘reasonable’ standard against which women are judged. That is historical exclusion in practice.

Until now, gender has never officially factored in judicial appointments.

You can see it in recent examples. In 2021, ‘virginity testing’ in rape cases was finally rejected as unscientific and degrading by Justice Ayesha Malik. Yet in 2024, the Supreme Court treated a woman’s account of rape as consensual sex, punishable as a crime, because she did not behave in the way the male judges expected her to; only the lone female judge disagreed.

None of this is accidental. It is the imprint of a judicial system designed to keep women out. The path to the judiciary favours elite education, financial stability, established networks — advantages women and non-Muslims are less likely to have. Stereotypes narrow it further. Walk into any courtroom today and it will be crowded with men who barely tolerate women’s presence, much less their views. This reality decides who gets through and who doesn’t.

In a system this stacked, the representational seat on the JCP is not a courtesy. It is a corrective. Women’s perspectives will not surface through the pipeline because the pipeline is not built for it. Nor will those of non-Muslims. And that is why the Constitution is precise: woman, non-Muslim, or technocrat. Three ways to force the door open.

There is evidence such interventions can work. A 2019 study across developing states found that the strongest predictor of a woman entering an all-male court was any institutional disruption, especially changes to who controls nominations.

In theory then, the representational seat looks like progress. In practice, it is harder to defend. In November 2025, the Speaker appointed a member to the reconstituted JCP through little more than a press release and a letter expressing his pleasure in making the appointment. There was no published process of selection, criteria, or explanation. For its part, the Constitution only says who may be chosen, not how. It stops at eligibility. But the problem is, eligibility is not the same as representation. For substantive inclusion, what matters is the perspective one brings, not me­­rely the categ­o­­ry they fit. An aerospace eng­ineer, for insta­nce, could satisfy both ‘wo-man’ and ‘technocrat’ definitions, yet add nothing of val­­ue for judicial appointments.

If the goal is wider representation in the Commission, the Speaker’s selection process must be transparent. Without it, even a sound appointment looks like dealer’s choice. We don’t know what due diligence was done, what standards were applied, if the appointee’s views on gender and equality were even considered, or how the next appointment will be made. If the only guarantee is the Speaker’s discretion, then the words “woman or non-Muslim” do not offer representation. Only decorative drafting.

If women’s rights are more than rhetoric, as the chief justice of Pakistan says, the fix is simple: a published set of rules, selection framework, and reasons for the decision. Not less discretion, but accountable use of it. The Speaker should be able to demonstrate he understood the purpose of the seat — he holds authority under oath to the Constitution, after all. Otherwise, women have been shortchanged by this country once again. Everything else is window dressing.

The writer is a lawyer.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2026

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