Islamabad: Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja has sworn in as the 23rd Chief Justice of Pakistan today (Monday). He will serve in the exalted position for just 23 days till September 10.
President Mamnoon Hussain administered the oath in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, three services chiefs and federal ministers.
He will figure among the chief justices who had the briefest tenures. The superior court judges retire when they meet the mandatory age limit. Justice Khawaja succeeds Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk who had an illustrious judicial career.
On September 10, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali will be sworn in as the chief justice to hold the coveted slot for 15 months.
Justice Jawwad S Khawaja was born on September 10, 1950, in Wazirabad, District Gujranwala. He did his graduation in arts in 1971 from the FC College, Lahore, and LLB from the Punjab University Law College, Lahore in 1973.
He then obtained a Masters (LLM) degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. Thereafter, he was enrolled as advocate of the High Court in 1975 and as advocate of the Supreme Court in 1985. He remained in legal practice until his appointment as a judge of the Lahore High Court on April 21, 1999.
Justice Khawaja resigned his constitutional tenure on March 19, 2007 after the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry by Musharraf. He then remained Professor of Law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and headed the Department of Law and Policy until his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court on June 5, 2009.
