Justice Ayesha A. Malik was named to the BBC’s 100 Women 2022 list. Justice Malik is the sole Pakistani woman on the BBC’s list of 100 notable women for 2022.
Justice Ayesha Malik observed, “Women must develop a new narrative that reflects their perspective, experience, and tales.”
The 56-year-old jurist became Pakistan’s first female supreme court judge this year. The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Gulzar Ahmed, administered her oath.
The CJP Ahmed stated no one could take credit for Justice Ayesha’s appointment to the SC, notwithstanding controversy about seniority, and Justice Ayesha was appointed based on her merit.
Her appointment to the top court was praised by legislators, women’s rights activists, and netizens in the country and abroad for her groundbreaking rulings, notably the 2021 ban on the two-finger virginity test for sexual assault victims.
“Along with her job on the Supreme Court, Malik undertakes training for judges around the world and has inaugurated conferences for women justices in Pakistan,” the BBC noted.
Justice Ayesha attended schools in Paris, New York, and London before earning her bachelor’s in Karachi and LLB in Lahore. The SC judge received a Landon H. Gammon Fellowship for her LLM at Harvard Law School.
Justice Ayesha formerly worked at the Lahore High Court.
