KARACHI, Jan 14: The superior judiciary of Pakistan is striving to fulfil its constitutional mandate to take steps for ensuring gender equality, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry told the Asia Pacific Advisory Forum for Judicial Education here late on Saturday night.

He commended the forum for periodically bringing together ‘the best minds’ in the Saarc region and beyond to consider strategies for improving the capability of legal practitioners and judicial officers to comprehend the law and procedure, conduct the cases and decide them within a reasonable period, saving both time and money.

Earlier, Justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid, adviser of the forum, recounted its activities and welcomed the chief justice.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Indian supreme court judge Dalveer Bhandari and former judge of Canadian supreme court Claire L’Heureux Dube.

Sindh High Court Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and other judges were also present.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said the Constitution of Pakistan bars discrimination on the basis of sex. It specifically mandates the state to take positive measures for women's rights and the superior judiciary is striving to give effect to the dictates of the Constitution, he added.

He referred to several judgments of the Supreme Court

of Pakistan in support of their endeavour to bring about gender equality.

The supreme court, he added, was sparing no effort to provide relief to the female population, which was more vulnerable to abuse and violation of their basic rights.

“What we are doing in the supreme court is to extend tactical and immediate relief to individual women victims, but the message goes to society at large,” he said.

About Islamic concept of ‘gender mainstreaming’, the chief justice particularly mentioned that in his last sermon, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) unequivocally declared that women have rights over men just as men have rights over women.

It was for the first time that women were given their due rights and provided a respectable place in society, he said.

He deplored that gender discrimination was prevalent all around the globe in various forms, shapes and shades and there was hardly a country or society that could claim immunity from it. He called for integration and introduction of gender rights perspectives into the plans, policies, programmes of government ministries and departments.

Gender rights concern should also feature in the curriculum of training institutions of judicial officers, prosecutors and police for greater reach and impact. Women’s empowerment and gender rights security, he emphasised, were big challenges needing consistent efforts by all stakeholders over a long period of time.