Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial has been included among the 100 Most Influential People of 2022 by Time magazine.
The top judge “is widely respected for his personal integrity, as he, the Columbia- and Cambridge-educated jurist, bears the heavy mantle of not just delivering justice but also being seen to do so,” lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan mentioned in the profile written by him and placed in the leaders’ category.
“Pakistan, a nation of more than 220 million, is too big to fail yet too unpredictable to ignore. With a fragile economy in a hostile neighborhood, the country was already walking a tightrope before the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government by a unified opposition backed by the army,” Mr. Ahsan remarked.
He further added, “The polite and understated chief justice of Pakistan and antidote to the rising temperatures”, took on the task when Pakistan’s economy and the civil-military ties were at a crucial stage.
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Pointing towards the SC ruling overturning then Prime Minister Imran Khan’s decision to dissolve the Parliament, stating it unconstitutional, Ahsan said, “As other institutions lock horns in a battle for advantage ahead of impending elections, the court turned up as the final arbiter.”
Justice Bandial did his law from the University of Cambridge in 1981 and was appointed as a judge of the Lahore High Court (LHC) in 2004.
Moreover, he gave services as the chief justice of the LHC for two years, afterward; he was promoted to a judge of the Supreme Court in June 2014.
Bandial was also a signatory of the majority governing authored by the previous judge Azmat Saeed Sheikh where main features of the Constitution were given.
He was part of the jury that had disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as the leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in addition, he was also part of the panel that called Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan as “Sadiq and Ameen”.
