Justice Musarrat Hilali will take over as the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) first female Chief Justice after the incumbent CJ Qaiser Rasheed retires on April 1.
After Justice Tahira Safdar, who served as the chief justice of the Balochistan High Court, she would be the second woman to assume leadership as the chief justice of a high court. One of the PHC’s most senior justices, Justice Musarrat Hilali, will serve as chief justice up until her retirement.
She was born in Peshawar on August 8, 1961. After graduating from Khyber Law College Peshawar University, she enrolled as a district court advocate in 1983, a high court advocate in 1988, and a Supreme Court advocate in 2006.
She achieved a number of things in her career despite being a woman, including being the first woman to be elected to the position of secretary at the bar in 1988–1989, vice president at the bar (twice) in 1992–1994 and general secretary in 1997–1998. She was also the first woman to be elected twice as an executive member of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) in 2007–2008 and 2008–2009.
From November 2001 until March 2004, she served as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s first female Additional Advocate General. Subsequently, she was named the first female head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Tribunal.
She was also the first woman to hold the position of ombudsperson for the Protection against Harassment of Women at Work.
On March 26, 2013, she was appointed as an additional judge, and on March 13, 2014, the PHC confirmed her as a permanent judge.
After being sworn in as the first female judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan last January, Justice Ayesha Malik created legal history in Pakistan.
