Justice Qazi Faez Isa, who on Sunday took oath as the chief justice of Pakistan succeeding CJP Umar Ata Bandial, spared no time in getting to work, issuing a notification to appoint a new registrar of the court, among other appointments.
According to the notification issued by the Supreme Court on Sunday evening, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa appointed Jazeela Aslam as the new registrar of the Supreme Court.
Aslam will be the first female registrar of the Supreme Court.
A short biography of Aslam accompanying the notification said that she completed her education from Lahore, including a law degree, while in the judicial competitive examinations, she secured second position. She joined the Punjab Judicial Service as a civil judge and magistrate in May 1994. She also worked as a deputy solicitor and later as an instructor in the Federal Judicial Academy. She went on to become the academic director of the Punjab Judicial Academy.
Before her appointment in the Supreme Court, she worked as a District and Sessions judge in Okara and was the senior-most female district and sessions judge in the province. Prior to that, she had been deputed in Kasur and Sialkot as a district and sessions judge.
Among her contributions to the field of law in Pakistan is that she authored Guidelines on Writing Judgements (2019) for civil judges apart from preparing a report on the Property Rights of Women (2020).
Elsewhere, CJP Isa made appointments for officers who will be working directly with him.
The first of these appointments is of the Secretary to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Muhammad Mushtaq Ahmad, a law professor from Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has been appointed.
Ahmad holds a doctorate in law and has served as the chairman of the Law Department at the International Islamic University in Islamabad (November 2016 to November 2018) and as the director-general of its Shariah Academy. Specialising in criminal law, international humanitarian law, human rights law, Islamic law and jurisprudence, and comparative religion, he has often assisted the Supreme Court and the Federal Shariat Court on matters of law on many occasions.
He was serving as the founding chairman of the Shariah and Law Department at the Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but has agreed to work in the Supreme Court for CJP Isa's tenure.
The last appointment is that of the Staff Officer to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. CJP Isa has appointed Abdul Sadiq in this role.
The notification said Sadiq hails from CJP Isa's home province of Balochistan. Before his appointment in the Supreme Court, Sadiq worked as a security officer in the Balochistan High Court in basic pay scale (BPS) grade 19. He will serve in the Supreme Court on deputation.
He was described as a multilingual, having command of most major Pakistani languages, including Urdu, English, Pashto, and Brahvi, apart from functional knowledge of Balochi, Dari, Seraiki and Punjabi.