- Justice Musarrat Hilali has had a remarkable professional career.
- She will be the 2nd woman to lead as CJ of a Supreme Court Justice.
- She was confirmed as PHC’s permanent judge on March 13, 2014.
PESHAWAR: Justice Musarrat Hilali will become the first female Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on April 1 following the retirement of the current CJ Qaiser Rasheed.
She would be the second woman to then take charge as CJ of a Supreme Court Justice Justice Tahira Safdarwho was the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Balochistan.
Judge Musarrat Hilali was among the top justices of PHC and would serve as Chief Justice until her retirement.
Born in Peshawar on 8 August 1961, she received a law degree from Khyber Law College Peshawar University and enrolled as a District Court Attorney in 1983, Supreme Court Attorney in 1988 and Supreme Court Attorney in 2006.
As a woman, she had several career achievements, including the first female elected bearer in the position of Secretary to the Bar from 1988-1989, Vice President at the Bar (twice) from 1992 to 1994, Secretary General from 1997-1998 , first female elected twice as an executive member of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) from 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.
She also served as the first female Additional Advocate General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from November 2001 to March 2004 and was later appointed as the first female chairperson of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Tribunal.
She also served as the first female ombudsperson for protection against harassment of women at work.
She was elevated to the bench as an additional judge on March 26, 2013, and confirmed as a permanent judge of the PHC on March 13, 2014.
Last January, Judge Ayesha Malik made history in the Pakistani justice system after being sworn in as the first female judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.