KARACHI: Former chief justice of Pakistan Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani has been awarded the 2020 J. Clifford Wallace Award by the J. Reuben Clark Law Society in recognition of his extraordinary career as a judge and a jurist.

According to a press rele­a­se, the decorated career of Justice Jillani spans thirty years (1994-2014).

He has also served as Pakistan’s representative judge at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Justice Jillani is the co-chair of the World Justice Project, which works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

The J. Reuben Clark Law Society is comprised of lawyers throughout the world who “affirm the strength brought to the law by a lawyer’s personal religious conviction” and “strive through public service and professional excellence to promote fairness and virtue founded upon the rule of law”.

In 2018, the Society created the J. Clifford Wallace award as a way of honouring Judge Wallace’s professional excellence, personal integrity and service to the legal profession to recognise jurists who have rendered “service to the administration of justice beyond the judge’s ordinary responsibilities”.

The 2018 recipient was Judge Wallace himself. The 2019 recipient was retired Chief Justice Christine Durham of the Utah Supreme Court.

The judges committee and the board of directors of the Society presented Justice Jillani the award in recognition of his years of distinguished service in Pakistan and his contributions to strengthen the rule of law internationally.

Justice Jillani will be accepting the award at the annual convention of the Society, which will be held in the US from Feb 27-29, 2020.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2019