This weekend (Saturday 27th March 2021) I had the great pleasure of being a guest speaker and reviewer, in a workshop hosted by the Pakistani Feminist Judgments Writing Project (PFJP).
Led by Marva Khan, Assistant Professor of Practice, Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law, Lahore University of Management Sciences, this project has been inspired by similar projects around the world – including the Australian Feminist Judgments Project, and the Wild Law Judgments Project, which I co-facilitated with Dr Nikki Rogers, from Southern Cross University.
The PFJP aims to write alternative feminist judgments in significant Supreme Court cases, to highlight how individual cases – and Pakistani judicial jurisprudence more widely – would have been decided and shaped if the cases had been written or decided from a feminist perspective.
The workshop I participated in was created to help contributors better understand the intricacies of specific areas of law, in order for them to rewrite and comment on their respective judgments efficiently. The workshops covered five themes: Criminal law, Environmental law, Family law, Discrimination, and Mobility and Economics.
It was due to my role in coordinating the Wild Law Judgments Project, that the PFJP coordinators got in touch with me and invited me to review several draft alternative environmental law judgments and give feedback. The environmental law cases that were chosen for rewriting were:
- Shehla Zia v WAPDA PLD 1994 SC 693 Environmental Hazard
- Province of Sindh v Lal Khan Chandio 2016 SCMR 48 Protection of Wildlife
It was fantastic to read the ‘rewritten’ judgments, from an ecofeminist point of view. The discussions in the workshop were equally fascinating, ranging from the historical significance of the cases in Pakistan, through to how judgments can fully incorporate ecocentric concepts in future law.
I’m looking forward to seeing the judgments and the project progress.