CJP takes notice of blind lawyer Yousaf Saleem's appeal

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar has taken suo motu notice of the plight of Yousaf Saleem, a visually impaired lawyer who was denied the post of a civil judge.

The chief justice has directed the chief justice of the Lahore High Court to review the case. 

Saleem has a gold medal from the University of Punjab where he did his LLB in 2014. 

Saleem, who hails from Lahore and currently works as an assistant director (legal) in a department of the Punjab Government, was one of the 21 out of 300 candidates who passed the written test for the civil judge position. 

However, his disability got in the way and he could only make it to the interview stage before being denied the position.

According to an article published in The News on Sunday, Saleem did not know that he was a topper in the exams until he was called in for the interview. 

Things took a turn for worse after the interviewees asked questions that mostly revolved around Saleem dealing with the criminal side and how a visually impaired judge like him would deal with them.

He was asked questions such as, “How will you decipher the demeanour of the witness?", "how will you ascertain if the same person is testifying as mentioned in the list of witnesses?", "how will you assess the situation on the documents?"

Saleem had answered the panel that he would take assistance from his staff where visual disability becomes a hurdle and also that criminal cases are not the only one a judge has to deal with. There are family courts, banking courts, rent courts and alternative dispute resolution forums etc. where he could be engaged in case his disability was a hurdle to deal with criminal cases, according to the news report. 

However, the interview panel didn’t merit his arguments.

On April 18, the list for successful candidates was published and Saleem’s name was missing.

Saleem had appealed to the chief justice to look into the matter. 

Saleem who is blind by birth has four sisters and two of them are also blind. 

One of his sisters, Saima Saleem, is the first blind person to pass her civil service exam in 2007 and currently works in the Prime Minister Secretariat as a deputy secretary while his other sister is a lecturer in a university in Lahore.