Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Musarrat Hilali is set to become the second woman judge of the Supreme Court after the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) unanimously approved her nomination on Wednesday.
Justice Hilali’s name will now be sent to the Parliamentary Committee on Judges Appointment for approval.
A meeting of the JCP was held under the chairmanship of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial to consider Justice Hilali’s ascension to the apex court.
Her name was initially suggested for elevation by Justice Qazi Faez Isa. It was subsequently agreed to be officially nominated by CJP Bandial.
She will be the second woman judge of the SC after Justice Ayesha Malik was appointed in January 2022.
Since March 2013, she has been the only woman on the bench of the Peshawar High Court. She is the third woman to sit on the bench in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and was the first chief justice of the PHC.
She took oath as acting chief justice of the Peshawar High Court on April 1, 2023, and became the permanent CJ of the PHC on May 12.
Justice Hilali was also the first woman additional advocate general of K-P from November 2001 to March 2004 and was later appointed as the first woman chairperson of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Tribunal.
She served as the first female ombudsperson for the Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act.
Born in Peshawar on August 8, 1961, Justice Hilali received a law degree from Peshawar University’s Khyber Law College. She enrolled as an advocate of district courts in 1983; as an advocate of the high court in 1988, and as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 2006.
She was the first woman to be elected as the secretary of the Peshawar Bar Association in 1988; the vice president of the bar twice from 1992 and 1994 and the general secretary of the bar from 1997 to 1998.
Justice Hilali had the honour to be the first woman to be elected twice as an executive member of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) respectively from 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.
