Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Azmat Saeed expressed sorrow on the maltreatment of young female lawyers, including sexual harassment by their senior colleagues, and said lady lawyers should focus on “professional capacity building through legal workshops” for independent working, take a bold stance for work place security in chambers and bring complaints, if any, before the bench and the bar for proper action.
Justice Azmat was speaking at a seminar organised by the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) Human Rights Committee (HRC) Chairperson Humaira Kaiser on problems faced by female lawyers, especially young female lawyers facing work place security issues, including sexual harassment by colleagues and owners of chambers. Justice (r) Nasira Javed Iqbal also spoke on the occasion.
Justice Azmat said, “We need to identify the problems young lawyers face and admit some ugly facts. I know young girls who join the profession; being dependent on chambers, they often do not complain on being sexually harassed”. Azmat said it was regrettable that young lawyers did not earn anything for years, being untrained in the profession, and both the bench and the bar were responsible for the sad state of the profession.
Azmat assured lady lawyers of the full support and cooperation of LHC judges, adding that judges would participate in all seminars and capacity building workshops to ensure that female lawyers succeeded in the profession with dignity. He advised lady lawyers to develop skills and expertise in legal sectors like family laws, tax and banking courts, which had a more favourable working environment and greater scope for success, but that it was possible only with focused work, in-depth knowledge of the field and legal training.
The judge said, “We should learn some lessons from Indian lawyers, who, sitting in their country with ordinary legal degrees, give consultation services to clients in the UK, US, and Gulf countries through call centres and earn millions with dignity, about 30 miles away from us, while are all of us are trying to excel in criminal law only.” Azmat said chambers of senior lawyers were not Edhi Centres for the help of young lawyers, so it was wrong to expect that the chamber would support young lawyers. He said about 150 young lawyers were enrolling in the profession per week without training or knowledge, and all new lawyers faced problems, especially females.
Sad it is but it is real. UK has strict laws and the work culture is not like this.
Comments are closed.