WLIP demands better protection for female lawyers
The Women in Law Initiative Pakistan (WLIP) has demanded that the Lawyers Protection and Welfare Act should be amended to include female legal practitioners’ maternity leaves, daycare policies, equal professional opportunities and protection from gender-based violence among other needs.
It further wanted provision of stipends, compliance with the workplace harassment law and an end to discriminatory practices during interviews included in the legislation.
It reiterated that the Act did not address the needs and concerns of the female lawyers.
“The Act must also be amended to enable shift towards online voting in bar elections. We also call for other technological advancements for making the justice sector more accessible for all, especially women and those who may be differently abled or operating on margins,” read a statement issued by the WLIP.
“We demand that the Act must also include setting up of an independent office of legal ombudsperson to address complaints of lawyers inter-se within the profession, particularly those who are marginalised, to promote and aid their protection and welfare,” it added.
The WLIP also disagreed with one part of resolution passed by the All-Pakistan Lawyers’ Convention held in Peshawar on July 8 this year and firmly stood against the seniority principle for judicial appointments.
“In this aspect, this lawyers’ convention does not represent our views and stance. We stand by our demand for fair representation in [the] justice sector and for affirmative action to ensure gender representation in [the] apex judiciary,” the WLIP stated.
“Technicalities like seniority are anti-women and anti-representation as well as anti-merit and deserve no place in [the] highest judicial forums. The colonial hangover with self-serving narratives around seniority are not the solutions to larger political context and polarisation that it is conveniently often assumed that they are. The roots of such polarisation come from a compromised bar in shape of growing interference and intermingling of national politics with bar politics,” it added.
“We demand that steps to ensure independence of bar be put in place to truly address [the] larger concerns around [the ]independence of judiciary. Only an independent bar can lead to independent judiciary and no seniority-like technicalities can achieve that, the statement read.
Thr WLIP contended that on the contrary, measures further entrenching technicalities and limiting the pool of candidates who can be appointed to the apex judiciary instead of widening it to include appointment from members of academia for instance would be counter-productive.
“[These measures will] disproportionately impact female lawyers and those on margins,” it concluded.