Pakistan appoints first female judge to Sharia court

Pakistan's national sharia court, which hears cases under the country's Islamic legislation, has appointed a female judge for the first time in its 33-year history.

Ashraf Jehan, who was serving as an additional judge at the High Court in Sindh, made history as she took the oath in Karachi.

"It was a historic oath-taking ceremony today when an able lady judge had joined the Sharia Court," Agha Rafiq Ahmed, the chief justice of the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan, told AFP.

The court was established in 1980.

''It was a historic oath-taking ceremony when an able lady judge had joined the Sharia Court," Agha Rafiq Ahmed, the chief justice of the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan, told AFP.

"There was no bar in the constitution to make a woman the judge of Sharia Court and there is no discrimination between men and women," Ahmed said.

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