Islamabad:
The Supreme Court ruled that a married woman remains a child equally as her deceased father as her other children, and denying her right to the basis of her marriage is equivalent to denying her constitutional identity as an equal citizen.
The judge of the Supreme Court, Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, said that any presumption that a married woman depends financially on her husband is not only legally unsustainable but also religiously unfounded, and contrary to the equal spirit of the Islamic law.
A division bank of the Apex court, led by Judge Shah, ruled the request of a school teacher, Zahida Parveen. Judge Shah was the author of a nine -page judgment, which ordered the defendant department to restore his appointment with all the benefits.
The petitioner Zahida Parveen was appointed as a primary school teacher under the quota of son/daughter who died on March 17, 2023. However, the District Education Officer (Women), Karak withdrew the appointment order without issuing a presentation notice.
The petitioner service was over due to a “clarification” that stipulated that the benefit of the appointment under the deceased quota of son/daughter was not available to a woman, who had contracted the marriage.
“The exclusion of the married daughters of the compassionate appointment [ ] It is declared discriminatory, ultra vires, issued without legal authority and incompatible with the constitutional guarantees of Pakistan and international legal obligations, “the court ruled.
“The defendant department is aimed at restoring the appointment of the petitioner with all the benefits,” he said. “As constitutional subjects, women have the right to equality not only in the result but also in the form, tone and respect with which the law addresses them.”
The Bank pointed out that all judicial and administrative authorities had a constitutional responsibility to adopt a language sensitive and neutral in gender. “The Judiciary must lead with the example, ensuring that the words used to interpret and apply the law do not become instruments of exclusion.”
The sentence declared: “This is not a mere formality, but reflects a substantive commitment to the values of dignity, equality and autonomy guaranteed to all citizens under articles 14, 25 and 27 of the Constitution.”
He said that women were autonomous citizens and that they carried rights in their own right and not by virtue of their relationship with a man, whether father, husband or son. He added that financial independence was not a privilege, but a previous condition necessary for the full realization of citizenship, autonomy and personality.
“A married daughter is still a son of her deceased father, and denying this right on the basis of marriage is to deny her constitutional identity as an equal citizen.
“Under the Islamic jurisprudence, a woman retains full property and control over her property, profits and financial issues, regardless of her marital status. Therefore, any presumption that a married woman becomes financially dependent on her husband is not only legally unsustainable, but also religiously unfounded, and contrary to the egalitary spirit of the Islamic Law,” the trial continued.
“This arbitrary classification is not only unreasonable, but clearly unconstitutional, offending the guarantees of equality (article 25), not discrimination in the public service (article 27) and the right to dignity (article 14). It also undermines the expectations of deceased civil employees whose families were secured legal security under the framework of compassionate appointments.”
Consequently, the sentence declared that the contested clarification and the letter dated April 28, 2023 could be annulled for being ultra vires, discriminatory and constitutionally disgusting, and added that when the basic order was not a legal authority, all the superstructure raised there fell automatically.
The court declared that the exclusion of married daughters in the field of rule 10 (4) of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa rules (appointment, promotion and transfer), 1989, was not simply an irregularity of procedure, but revealed a deeper structural failure based on the alleged patriarchal about the identity of a woman and her legal and economic role.
According to the trial, it was presumed that a woman, to marriage, resigned from her independent legal identity and became economically dependent on her husband, thus losing the rights available for male homologists located similarly.
“In essence, this exclusion constitutes a denial of a woman’s right to financial and economic independence, rights that are not auxiliary but essential for the exercise of constitutional personality. The Constitution guarantees the rights to people, not to the marriage units or the prescribed social roles,” he said.
The Order also said that the justification that supports the contested clarification represents a constitutionally inadmissible rebirth of the doctrine of the charging law discredited, under which the legal existence of a woman was subsumed to that of her husband.
“Contemporary constitutional jurisprudence has firmly rejected such notions, stating that marriage does not extinguish the legal personality of a woman or reduce their rights under the law. No policy or executive clarification that seeks to reintroduce this logic under the pretext of marriage dependence violates the main constitution of the guarantees of dignity, equality and not decade, the phrases.
The sentence warned that excluding married daughters from a compassionate appointment under rule 10 (4) not only violated the constitutional framework of Pakistan, but also breached their international legal obligations, particularly those of the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW).
Articles 2 and 11 of CEDAW explicitly prohibited discrimination in employment based on sex and marital status, the sentence said, added that the CEDAW committee had repeatedly underlined that the laws and administrative practices rooted in the cultural stereotypes or the usual norms are incompatible with the state tax of ensuring the equality of managers of managers.
The court also expressed concern about the language used in the contested trial, particularly the phrase “a married daughter becomes a responsibility of her husband”, saying that this language was not only factual and legally wrong, but also deeply patriarchal, they reinforce the obsolete stereotypes that were fundamentally incompatible with constitutional values.
“The use of language biased by gender by judicial or administrative bodies not only reflects prevailing social prejudices, perpetuates and legitimates structural discrimination, and runs the risk of coding bias in the law itself,” the trial warned. “As constitutional subjects, women have the right to equality not only in the result but also in the form, tone and respect with which the law addresses them.”
In this context, the sentence said, the project of feminist trials carried out in several jurisdictions, including Pakistan, had demonstrated how judicial reasoning could be reformulated through a feminist lens, applying existing legal principles, while avoiding gender assumptions and incorporating an inclusive and affirmative language of equality.
“The central premise is clear: how the law is written is as much as what it decides.”
