After the departure of incumbent CJ Qaiser Rasheed, Justice Musarrat Hilali will become the first female chief justice of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on April 1.
She would be the second woman to serve as Chief Justice of a high court, following Justice Tahira Safdar of the Balochistan High Court.
Justice Musarrat Hilali was one of the PHC’s most senior justices and would serve as chief justice until her departure.
She was born in Peshawar on August 8, 1961, and earned a law degree from Khyber Law College Peshawar University before enrolling as a district court advocate in 1983, a high court advocate in 1988, and a Supreme Court advocate in 1989.
She was the first female elected office bearer on the post of secretary at the bar from 1988-1989, vice president at the bar (twice) from 1992 to 1994, general secretary from 1997-1998, and first female twice elected as an executive member of Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) from 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.
From November 2001 to March 2004, she was the first female Additional Advocate General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and she subsequently became the first female head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Tribunal.
She was also the first female ombudsperson for the Protection of Women at Workplace Harassment.
On March 26, 2013, she was promoted to the bench as an extra judge, and on March 13, 2014, she was approved as a permanent judge of the PHC.
Justice Ayesha Malik created history in Pakistan’s legal system last January when she was sworn in as the country’s first female Supreme Court justice.
