LHC judge resigns years ahead of retirement to focus on judicial research

By Staff Reporter

LAHORE: A Lahore High Court judge has resigned from the bench, more than a decade before he was due to retire, saying he intends to devote himself to legal scholarship, policy research and the study of judicial systems abroad.

Justice Raheel Kamran Sheikh submitted his resignation, dated 3 September, to President Asif Ali Zardari under Article 206 of the Constitution. A copy was also forwarded to the registrar of the Lahore High Court.

In his letter, Justice Sheikh described his time on the bench as the most formative and fulfilling period of his professional life, and said serving as a judge had been both an honour and a source of pride. He wrote that the decision to step down followed “deep and sustained reflection”, after which he had concluded that his further growth as a jurist — and his capacity to contribute to the rule of law and access to justice — would be better served outside the judiciary, through what he called “a period of broader engagement with legal scholarship, policy research and comparative judicial practice”.

He thanked his senior colleagues on the bench for their guidance during his tenure, and his staff for their support, adding that he was leaving the judiciary with what he described as an enduring commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law.

Justice Sheikh, 50, was appointed to the Lahore High Court on 7 May 2021 and had not been due to reach the age of superannuation until 30 January 2036 — meaning his departure comes almost fifteen years before the end of his expected tenure.

A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Justice Sheikh trained as a barrister at the Middle Temple in London. He was enrolled as an advocate of the high courts in April 2000 and as an advocate of the Supreme Court in September 2012.

Before his elevation to the bench, he built a wide-ranging legal practice spanning public law, commercial law, taxation, regulatory matters, white-collar crime and human rights. Between 2016 and 2020, he served as an elected member of the Pakistan Bar Council, during which time he chaired its Human Rights Committee and also sat on the council’s Executive Committee.

He is the son of Akram Sheikh, a senior lawyer and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, one of the most prominent figures in Pakistan’s legal fraternity.