Life tough for Pakistan's future women judges: Daily

Islamabad - A Pakistani daily welcomed the government's decision to appoint women to the judiciary, but cautioned that "future women justices are going to find life on the bench no easier than they do in every other aspect of their lives".

An editorial in the News International Monday said that President Asif Ali Zardari has declared that the government has decided to appoint women to the judiciary, "a move that can only be supported at the same time as noting that it is a move long overdue".

The daily said: "Discrimination against women, be it in terms of their education, job or promotion opportunities, rights of inheritance or reproductive health care is one of the greatest impediments to our overall development."

It rued that the country has "parliamentarians who are happy to stand up and proclaim that the burying alive of women on the grounds of ‘honour’ is culturally acceptable and others who have fought tooth and nail to block laws that would have protected women were they ever enforced".

"It is against that background that the government is now considering appointing women judges.

"They will be working in an environment where the law is honoured more in the breach than the observance - and that too by the very government that will have appointed them if they are seated before the election," said the daily.

"Our future women justices are going to find life on the bench no easier than they do in every other aspect of their lives. Perhaps they could learn some valuable lessons from the distinguished women judges we have had in the past," it added.