Ben & Jerry’s co-founder announces lawsuit against Magnum for ‘interfering’ with its social mission

The brand's new parent company tried to remove three key members of the independent board overseeing its social missions.

Images Staff
20 Dec, 2025
DAWN

Ben Cohen, the outspoken co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, has announced that the ice cream brand’s independent board is suing its new parent company, Magnum, accusing it of illegally interfering with the board that safeguards Ben & Jerry’s social mission — just one week after Magnum took charge.

“On Monday, just one week after taking charge of Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum tried to remove three key members from the Independent Board, which oversees Ben & Jerry’s social mission,” Cohen wrote in a post on X.

“The Independent Board is now suing Unilever/Magnum.”

Cohen made it clear that, in his view, the move crosses a legal and ethical line. “Magnum does not have the legal right to interfere with the Independent Board,” he added.

Reiterating the company’s founding ethos, Cohen stressed that Ben & Jerry’s was built to speak out — especially when it is uncomfortable. “If Magnum can’t live with that, they shouldn’t be in charge of it,” he wrote, adding the hashtag #FreeBenAndJerrys.

In 2000, Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield sold the company to Unilever, negotiating a unique governance structure designed to protect its social mission.

However, the founders have repeatedly accused Unilever of trying to muzzle the brand’s activism, tensions that culminated in Greenfield’s resignation in September. Now, with Ben & Jerry’s placed under Unilever’s subsidiary — The Magnum Ice Cream Company (MICC) — those fears appear to have intensified.

What actually happened

According to Reuters, Ben & Jerry’s — now operating under Magnum — removed three long-serving members of its independent board as part of newly introduced governance rules, including a nine-year term limit for board members.

Among them was Anuradha Mittal, the board’s chair, who joined in 2007 and had served as chair since 2018. Mittal told Reuters earlier this month that she had no intention of stepping down under pressure from Unilever, describing attempts to remove her as an effort to “undermine the authority of the board itself”.

In a statement, Ben & Jerry’s said that directors who had served more than nine years would no longer be eligible for re-election from 2026 onward. While the company did not publicly name the affected members, sources confirmed to Reuters that Mittal was removed with immediate effect, while long-standing directors Daryn Dodson and Jennifer Henderson will see their terms expire on December 31.

If the three additional directors are removed, the board, which once had eight members, would be left with just two directors, Ben & Jerry’s CEO and one member previously appointed by the brand’s prior owner Unilever.

Cohen strongly pushed back against the move, praising the three directors for serving “with integrity and courage” and calling their removal “another step in Magnum’s systematic effort to dismantle Ben & Jerry’s from the inside and silence the very social mission that gives the brand its value.”

Competing narratives

Magnum, which now controls Ben & Jerry’s, has claimed that the brand’s foundation trustees have refused to address alleged deficiencies in financial controls and governance.

The trustees, however, flatly rejected those claims.

In a statement, they said the allegations were “misleading and unfounded,” arguing that what is unfolding is “a coordinated effort by Magnum to manufacture a narrative of dysfunction” in order to justify unprecedented control over an independent, mission-driven institution.

This latest clash is not happening in isolation. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop selling ice cream in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, prompting a legal clash with Unilever. Last year, the company sued its parent over what it said were repeated attempts to silence its advocacy for a ceasefire and Palestinian rights.

Ben & Jerry’s was officially moved under The Magnum Ice Cream Company in September as part of Unilever’s planned corporate spin-off.

Google warns staff with US visas against international travel due to embassy delays: report

Reuters Published December 20, 2025 

Alphabet’s Google has advised some employees on US visas to avoid international travel due to delays at embassies, Business Insider reported on Friday, citing an internal email.

The email, sent by the company’s outside counsel BAL Immigration Law on Thursday, warned staff who need a visa stamp to re-enter the United States not to leave the country because visa processing times have lengthened, the report said.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Some US embassies and consulates face visa appointment delays of up to 12 months, the memo said, warning that international travel will “risk an extended stay outside the US”, according to the report.

The administration of US President Donald Trump this month announced increased vetting of applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, including screening social media accounts.

The H-1B visa programme, widely used by the US technology sector to hire skilled workers from India and China, has been under the spotlight after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee for new applications this year.

In September, Google’s parent company Alphabet had strongly advised its employees to avoid international travel and urged H-1B visa holders to remain in the US, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Employee conduct

This approach is best illustrated in cases of employees prone to absenteeism, a leading source of misconduct the world over. 

Parvez Rahim 

Published December 20, 2025 

DAWN

The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan University Hospital.

THE Industrial and Commercial Emp­loyment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968, is the most critical and frequently referred to labour enactment in Pakistan. It contains provisions relating to the classification of workmen, mandatory issuing of appointment letters, payment of profit bonus, retrenchment, termination of employment and a standing order relating to punishments.

Standing Order (SO) 15, relating to punishments, is one of the most used provisions of labour laws, which classifies the offences committed by employees into two categories. The first is in the case of an employee guilty of offences that aren’t serious — the employee is liable to be fined a nominal amount. The other is in the case of an employee guilty of an act of commission or omission, which has serious implications for the organisation — that employee is liable to be dismissed from service.

There is a comprehensive list of ‘misconducts’ in the SO, for which an employee may either be (i) fined; or (ii) his increment or promotion withheld for up to one year; or (iii) relegated to a lower post; or (iv) dismissed from service.

The key misconducts include “willful insubordination or disobedience to any lawful and reasonable order of a superior; theft, fraud, or dishonesty in connection with the employer’s business or property; willful damage to or loss of employer’s goods or property; habitual absence without leave or absence without leave for more than 10 days; riotous or disorderly behaviour during working hours or any act subversive of discipline; and habitual negligence and neglect of work.”

Employers must adopt a reformative approach.

Where possible the employers should focus on the rehabilitation of offenders to reintegrate them as responsible employees. This reformative approach emphasises changing an individual’s behaviour by addressing the root causes of their disruptive activity through counselling, psychological treatment and the introduction of incentives. It contrasts with retribution and deterrence.

This approach is best illustrated in cases of employees prone to absenteeism, a leading source of misconduct the world over. Excessive absenteeism is rampant in in both the private and public sectors. The most common reason given is sickness. Illness can be feigned and neither the company doctor or some other medic can be sure whether the absence is related to sickness.

Absenteeism leads to escalation in the cost of running a business. There are hidden costs such as overtime to cover for sick employees, temporary help to replace absentees, supervisory time spent to find a person to cover, and lowered productivity on the part of those who have to work harder for someone who is chronically absent. As people do get sick, it is unrealistic to set a goal of zero absenteeism. The right objective is to have programmes that penalise those who abuse their sick leave privilege. It is also desirable to reward employees who have good attendance records.

Generally, employers have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud and dishonesty by employees. While there is nothing wrong in having such a policy, one must know the reasons behind such actions. Employees commit fraud due to pressure, opportunity and the belief that their behaviour is justified even if not appropriate. They are often driven by personal financial issues, a sense of being undervalued, and weak internal controls. Other contributory factors include addiction, a belief that they deserve more compensation, and sometimes an inability to distinguish between right and wrong actions.

Actions subversive of discipline by employees are also common. These stem from organisatio­nal shortcomings, psychological factors and personal issues. They invol­­ve lack of clarity, fairness and support at the workplace rather than malicious intent. Poor management, such as autocratic attitudes, favouritism, or a manager’s own failure to follow rules, can damage morale and encourage insubordination.

Employees indulge in disorderly behaviour due to feelings of unfairness, lack of support and poor management practices. This misconduct is frequently a symptom of deeper workplace issues. Managers often complain that a certain employee is consistently underperforming and recommend strict action. Unless precise allegations of habitual negligence against the employee are proved in an internal inquiry, action on the basis of vague statements by the supervisor will backfire.

Interestingly, cases of misconduct are far higher among men than women working in a similar capacity.

While one is not advising employers to refrain from taking action against employees guilty of serious misconduct, they should tighten financial controls and train managers in how to supervise employees with fairness. Companies managed professionally hardly encounter any cases of indiscipline.

The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan University Hospital.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2025

Gaza commitments

Editorial 

Published December 20, 2025  

DAWN

QUESTIONS are again being raised about Pakistan’s possible contribution to the so-called International Stabilisation Force in Gaza, after reports in the media suggested the US wanted this country to commit troops.

The Foreign Office has said that Pakistan has not been asked to send personnel, nor has the country taken a decision yet. The issue resurfaced after reports began circulating that Field Marshal Asim Munir was due to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington in the near future, with Gaza deployment to feature in the talks.

The FO contradicted these reports, while a White House official also said no such meeting was on the cards. Earlier, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar had said that Pakistan could not take a decision until the ISF’s terms of reference were clear, adding that disarming Hamas was “not our job”.

Perhaps it is time that the state took a decision about the ISF deployment. Like most grand schemes of the Trump administration, the Gaza plan is high on hyperbole, and low on substance. Critically, the US State Department’s reported vision for foreign troops in Gaza to dismantle “terrorist infrastructure” and decommission weapons “used by terrorists” — euphemisms for disarming Hamas — is incredibly problematic, especially for Arab and Muslim states.

Mr Trump’s scheme seeks to put Muslim states on a collision course with Hamas and other resistance groups, and attempts to do what Israel failed. It is our view that no Muslim state should be fighting Palestinian groups, essentially doing Israel’s dirty work. It is perhaps because of this unsavoury aspect of the Gaza plan that so many states have refused to commit troops.

As per reports, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Egypt and other Arab states have all said that in the current conditions, they will be unable to send troops to the occupied Palestinian territory. Pakistan must not break with this consensus, and its own stated principles, by sending troops to confront Palestinian resistance groups.

The state has taken difficult decisions such as this in the past. For example, despite significant Saudi pressure, through the collective wisdom of parliament the state preferred neutrality and refused to commit forces to the war on Yemen’s Houthis. In hindsight, this was the correct decision.

Israel cannot be trusted, and has already indicated that it intends to remain in significant parts of occupied Gaza. Muslim and Arab states, thus, should not become accessories in the US-Israeli plan to perpetuate the occupation. Hamas is willing to lay down arms, but only if there is a visible pathway for a Palestinian state.

Tel Aviv abhors the idea of a viable Palestinian state, and the implementation of the ceasefire’s second phase looks doubtful. Pakistan should, therefore, stay away from any half-baked plans to commit troops to an occupied war zone.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2025

Over 1,000 patients have died awaiting evacuation from Gaza since July 2024: WHO

AFP Published December 19, 2025

Medics evacuate injured people and cancer patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on October 28, 2024. — AFP/File



More than 1,000 patients have died while waiting for urgent medical evacuation from war-ravaged Gaza in the last year and a half, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that the UN agency and its partners had “evacuated over 10,600 patients from Gaza with severe health conditions, including over 5,600 children” since the start of the war more than two years ago.

But he warned that “many more patients remain in Gaza awaiting evacuation to receive appropriate healthcare”.

Citing numbers from the health ministry in Gaza, Tedros said that 1,092 patients were known to have died while awaiting medical evacuation just between July 2024 and November 28, 2025.

“This figure is likely underreported,” he warned, calling on “more countries to open doors to patients from Gaza, and for medical evacuation to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to be restored”.

“Lives depend on it.”

The WHO has previously estimated that more than 16,500 patients still need treatment outside of Gaza, while a top official with the charity Doctors Without Borders told AFP earlier this month the actual number was likely “three to four times that number”.

Up to December 1, over 30 countries had taken patients from Gaza, but only a handful, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, had accepted large numbers.

A US-sponsored ceasefire has halted fighting in Gaza, which began after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

But the deal, in effect since October 10, remains fragile as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of violations.

Conversation

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

@DrTedros

Since October 2023,

@WHO

and partners have evacuated over 10,600 patients from Gaza with severe health conditions, including over 5600 children, each one in need of critical advanced treatment. Yet, many more patients remain in Gaza awaiting evacuation to receive appropriate health care. According to Ministry of Health, 1092 patients have died while awaiting medical evacuation between July 2024 and November 28, 2025. However, this figure is likely underreported. WHO calls on more countries to open doors to patients from Gaza, and for medical evacuation to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to be restored. Lives depend on it.

12:00 AM · Dec 19, 2025

·

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Dead inside

America’s glamour cannot mask the violence that goes on.

Rafia Zakaria 

Published December 20, 2025  

DAWN

EVEN as the US teeters on the world stage, with economic woes and the gap between the rich and poor expanding, you wouldn’t know it if you landed in an American city. The cars are still shiny and new. The restaurants are still full of people laughing, eating, and spending on a single meal what could support an entire family in South Asia for perhaps months. New York City is decked up for Christmas, with gorgeous decorations adorning its streets. A peek into the homes of the wealthy reveals scenes of celebration. The world may be burning but the wealthy and powerful remain untouched by misery.

Such is the mask that America wears. Over the last week, however, it slipped a little as some events showed that even the world’s wealthiest are not immune to tragedy and that beneath the brightest exteriors lie the darkest truths. The first scene unfolded in Los Angeles. The setting was a Christmas party, a glitzy affair hosted by the former late night TV show host Conan O’Brien. It was the sort of thing that one sees in American movies and indeed many who make American movies were in attendance. Champagne and great food flowed in luscious quantities.

It was here that an illustrious Hollywood family was seen having a very public altercation. The director-actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were there. Reiner directed movies including When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride. It was during the time he was making When Harry Met Sally that he met the woman who would become his wife — he changed the ending of the movie for her. He wanted it to have a happy ending so that he would have one too.

Michele and Rob were both at the party as was their son Nick Reiner. According to reports, the son got into a loud argument with his parents at the party. It is unclear what the argument was about, but the couple left after the clash. Everyone knows what happened next. The couple were found stabbed to death hours later. In the days that have followed it has become known that Nick Reiner had struggled with drugs and substance abuse for years. He has been arrested.

On the other side of the country, another nightmare was unfolding at Brown University. Early December is the time for exams at US universities and students were all cramming. In the engineering building, a study session was being held in one of the classrooms. It was full of students. At around 4pm, a gunman burst into the classroom and opened fire. According to police, he shot about 40 rounds. When he was done, two were dead and nine injured. The gunmen himself was able to get away (he was found dead some days later, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound). Students at the university were in lockdown for hours; those in the building hid in closets and hallways and bathrooms because they did not know if the shooter would be bursting into their rooms next. They had to stay that way until the police came and led them to a safe place. One of the students killed was from Azerbaijan — no doubt living out his dream of attending one of the top institutions in the world.


America’s glamour cannot mask the violence that goes on.

Not far from Brown University, another murder took place, a couple of days after the shooting. The victim was an MIT professor — a brilliant scientist from Portugal. Police are now linking the suspect in the Brown University tragedy with the murder of the professor.

Tragedies and crimes occur everywhere in the world, and it is true that America is a big country. But who was killed, how easily they were killed, and the she­­er rapacious sc­­ale of violence cannot be masked even by all the po­­wer, wealth and glamour covering it up. The people who died over the weekend were all brilliant and talented and yet could not count on the state to give them a safe existence. The inner wreck of family structures, the completely unchecked proliferation of weapons, and more than anything else, the easy tendency of individuals to turn to violence has become a cancer that is eating America from the inside.

Two of the four people that died were immigrants — one a student at Brown University and the other the MIT professor. The US is making a big show of being done and dusted with immigration and immigrants. Immigrants too should seriously look at other places where they can flourish and actually live a safe and peaceful life. This macabre America, replete with gun violence, where everyone, from a wealthy film director to an outstanding student to a science genius, can be killed in so short a period of time is not the place for a better future.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2025


Rafia Zakaria is an attorney and human rights activist. She is a columnist for DAWN Pakistan and a regular contributor for Al Jazeera America, Dissent, Guernica and many other publications.

She is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Beacon Press 2015). She tweets @rafiazakaria

PAKISTAN

Building research capacity

Faisal Bari 

Published December 19, 2025

DAWN
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

LITERATURE on teacher impact shows that good teaching provides a significant delta on student learning, compared to average or poor teaching. Simply put, teachers matter and good teaching is important for ensuring better learning outcomes.

However, recruiting, motivating, and keeping good teachers gainfully and efficiently employed is not easy. In Pakistan, a couple of decades back, teacher recruitment was seen as having too much discretion with not enough reliance on rules. Allegations of corruption and nepotism in teacher recruitment were common. Many of these charges were based on facts. Two decades ago, reforms were introduced to move to more rules-based (merit-based) recruitment. This has definitely reduced the allegations, and litigation on recruitment issues has also decreased. But has it improved teacher and/or teaching quality? Has it improved student learning? And what unintended consequences has it led to? These are important follow-ups for completing the loop for feedback and continuous improvement. ‘Merit’-based recruitment might reduce corruption, but does it allow us to differentiate between good and bad teachers? If not, the reform might be of limited value.

Many places worldwide have significant requirements for specific courses, diplomas and even degrees before a person can become a teacher. When we moved towards merit-based recruitment, provincial governments removed the requirements for education degrees before joining as a teacher. This has increased the pool of candidates for teaching (a physics graduate can come into teaching directly) but many of these applicants did not choose to be teachers and have no understanding of what teaching is: you can be good at physics but teach it badly. How has this impacted learning outcomes?

Some jurisdictions even have teacher licensing. Teacher licensing has often been talked about in Pakistan but it was only recently that Sindh introduced it. But will licensing improve teaching and learning? We have 1.5 million or so teachers in Pakistan and still suffer a shortage. Will licensing help? Is it only for government schools or also private schools? Will teachers be required to have licences in low-fee private schools, where sometimes they teach Matriculation- or Intermediate-level students? Who will pay for the cost?


Recruiting, motivating, and keeping good teachers efficiently employed is not easy.

Once a teacher has been recruited, is she a teacher forever? Does she need any education, training or upgradation? Is there a role for continuous professional development and how is it to be structured? Punjab has some 450,000 teachers. How do you design effective professional development systems for such large numbers? Do we design devolved systems or centralised ones? How do we ensure quality and some level of uniformity across the system? We have had continuing professional development systems in place, but the general feeling is that they don’t seem to work and haven’t had the intended impact and definitely not the one needed.

Once deployed, how do we keep teachers motivated to teach effectively for the entire length of their careers — 30-35 years? What are effective career paths for teachers? If a teacher is a good Grade 1 teacher today, how do we ensure that she will be a good, motivated and effective Grade 1 teacher in 10, 20 or 30 years from now? What should happen to her financial returns and other ‘incentives’ so that she is able to have a rewarding career in Grade 1?

We do not have research on most of these important questions. Which means we do not have effective feedback loops on policies. Policies keep coming and getting implemented. But what consequences do they have? How can we improve if we don’t have effective feedback loops that research consequences and impact?


What is heartening is that there is an increasing realisation — in government and academia and among development partners and research institutions — of the need to have these feedback loops and to do relevant policy research on important questions. Most education departments already have specific implementation and planning units to structure some of this work. Development partners have historically funded and encouraged some research, but this has recently become more structured and is being given due importance. Academic research output has also been steadily increasing in education in Pakistan.

The most recent and current impetus has come from a very innovative research support programme funded by FCDO and called the Data and Research in Education-Research Consortium. DARE-RC has funded some 35 studies in the education sector, five to six of them on teacher issues. These studies are in collaboration with education departments. The programme is of medium term (it just closed the fourth round of call for proposals).

The results of the studies will allow us to bring out relevant issues more clearly, and some of them will start answering some of the questions raised above. By focusing on local researchers, the programme is also developing the capacity for research in education in Pakistan and a community of practice in the area. The hope is that other programmes, following this one and funded by government and partners, will continue to build on this approach, so that we not only have answers to the questions but also the local capacity to do such work. We will always have more questions and we need communities and people who are able to answer them so that we can keep improving outcomes in education.


Pakistan must have around 1.5-2m teachers today. With millions of children still out of school, and with most in-school children getting a poor quality of education across the country, we need more teachers — more motivated and committed teachers — and a lot more teacher training to ensure better content knowledge as well as a sound understanding of optimal pedagogical strategies. We also need much better policies for management and regulation of teaching, and effective feedback loops to ensure things keep improving. In this context, DARE-RC offers an interesting model for developing the capacity needed for such work. I hope education departments will not only look at the outcomes of the research studies being done under DARE-RC, but also at how the research capacity being built can be strengthened and deepened beyond the programme. This is important if we are to ensure our policies improve over time.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025

FEMICIDE

PAKISTAN

Judicial injustice

Rida Hosain 

Published December 17, 2025

DAWN

IN his additional note in Noor Mukadam’s case, Justice Ali Baqar Najafi wrote that the case is “a direct result of a vice spreading in the upper society which we know as living [sic] relationship … The young generation must note its horrible consequences such as in the present case which is also a topic for the social reformist, to discuss in their circles”. The order implies that if a victim conformed to a certain moral or societal expectation, the crime could have been avoided. The reasoning shifts the focus away from the perpetrator’s culpability and onto the victim’s character and choices. It perpetuates a culture in which women are held responsible for the violence inflicted upon them. Victims are expected to predict, prevent, and bear responsibility for the violence committed against them.

According to a report by the Sustainable Social Development Organisation, 32,617 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) were reported in 2024 including 2,238 incidents of domestic violence and 547 cases of ‘honour’ killings. Women are subjected to violence not because they deviate from ‘norms’, but often precisely within those conventional and domestic spaces — inside their homes and at the hands of family members. To claim that the crime is the result of ‘live-in’ or a specific kind of a relationship demonstrates ignorance and dangerously reinforces victim-blaming. Cases of GBV must not be converted into a moral discussion. Nor should a victim’s life be reduced to a cautionary tale for society. The presence of such a Supreme Court order signals to the entire judicial hierarchy that moral commentary in cases of GBV is acceptable when it should have no place in our legal system. Rather than rejecting narratives that justify violence, the same harmful logic is being embedded in an order.

In contrast, in 2021, in ‘Atif Zareef vs the State’, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah held: “A woman, whatever her sexual character or reputation may be, is entitled to equal protection of law. No one has the licence to invade her person … it is the accused who is on trial and not the victim.” Placed side by side, the difference in the two judgements is stark. One judgement uses a judicial order to blame a victim, the other dismantles those very prejudices. One judgement shifts respon-

sibility away from the perpetrator, the other makes it unmistakably clear that the victim is not on trial. One judgement reduces the victim to a moral lesson, the other reaffirms her right to dignity.

During the hearings of the case, similar remarks were reported in the press. However, the ‘remarks’ now form part of a judicial order. The order creates a hierarchy of victims; those deemed ‘deserving’ of sympathy and those who are deemed to have ‘brought it upon themselves’. In a country where there is already severe underreporting, the order may further lead to victims choosing silence over the risk of being blamed for the violence against them.


GBV cases mustn’t be converted into moral debates.

Justice Najafi is one of seven judges that has been appointed to the Federal Constitutional Court. In the post-27th Amendment constitutional order, the FCC has the final say on constitutional interpretation. The FCC can, through the stroke of a pen, undo well-settled jurisprudence. The 27th Amendment does not specify criteria for appointment of judges to the FCC. The first batch of judges essentially hold their position by virtue of the executive selecting them.

Prior to the destructive 26th and 27th amendments, Pakistan was to have its first female chief justice in 2030. Previously, on the basis of seniority, the most senior judge of the court would have taken oath as chief justice and the executive had no say in the process. Under the bizarre new system, there are two chief justices: a chief justice of the FCC and a chief justice of the Supreme Court. Per the amendments, the FCC and SC chief justices are to be chosen by a parliamentary committee which shall have proportional representation based on the strength in parliament, and will select the chief justices from the three senior-most judges. Without government support in the committee, an eligible judge will not succeed in becoming chief justice of either court. Government approval has become a decisive factor in determining which judge becomes chief justice.

And with that, the once-certain prospect that Pakistan was on track to have its first female chief justice is no longer there. A previously guaranteed milestone has been made subject to the whims of political power. While representation alone cannot transform an institution, it remains an important advancement for women in the judiciary. Meaningful change requires strengthening institutions, not tearing them down. For far too long, unconscious bias against women has plagued our judicial system; the amendments entrench further injustice.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2025

The writer is a barrister. She tweets @RidaHosain