Only seven women judges in judiciary’s upper tier

The Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan has said presently there were 126 judges working at the upper tier of the judiciary and only a paltry amount of seven or  5.5% of them were women.

In a news statement issued on Friday, the commission said it had recently released a report that summarized the statistics of women working in the justice sector of the country.

“The report … reveals that there are currently 126 judges working at the upper tier of the judiciary, which includes the Supreme Court, the Federal Shariat Court, and the Five High Courts,” it read.
“Out of these 126 judges, 119 are male judges, while only seven are female” it continued.

 “Therefore, female judges make up only 5.5% of the total working strength of judges at the upper tier.”
Overall, it said there were 572 women judges and judicial officers or 18% out of the 3,142 working across of the country.

The report highlighted that there were 3,016 judicial officers working at the district level – out of them only 565 or 19% were women.

“The report also provides district-wise details of the positions held by female judicial officers, highlighting their significant role in the administration of justice. Additionally, the report includes a province-wise list of ex-cadre positions held by female judicial officers.”

The report further revealed that there were 230,879 lawyers enrolled in different provincial bars in the country.

“Out of these, 198,100 lawyers are male, while around 40,000 lawyers are female. This means that female lawyers make up about 17% of the total number of lawyers enrolled.”

The statement read that according to the report, the data collected from the prosecution departments revealed that there were currently 2,210 prosecution officers working in the country.

“Out of [them], 1,869 officers are male and 341 are female, indicating that women make up only 15% of the total network strength of prosecution officers.”

The statement read that the report highlighted the significant contributions of women in the justice sector of the country but also pointed out that their representation was not proportional to their share of the overall population.

"Therefore, it is recommended that the government and other relevant stakeholders take steps to encourage the inclusion of more females in the justice sector,” the statement concluded.