Claim: An image shows Supreme Court Justice Ayesha Malik meeting with women members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Fact: The claim is misleading. The picture shows the judge standing with two lawyers, at a conference on violence against women organised by the United Nations and Women in Law, in Lahore. The image is from 2018, well before Justice Malik was appointed as the first female judge of the Supreme Court.
On 27 June 2024, a user on X (formerly Twitter) posted an image (archive) with the caption,
جسٹس عائشہ ملک پی ٹی آئی کی خواتین کے ساتھ ۔۔
Translation: “Justice Ayesha Malik with women of PTI.”
Secretary General of Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan Shah Owais Noorani, also posted the same image with a similar claim. When translated into English, the caption of his post reads, “Honorable Justice of the Supreme Court with the workers of a political party. Saying anything beyond that will be contempt of court!”
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used Google Lens to find a post on X by Reema Omer, a legal advisor in South Asia for the International Commission of Jurists. In this post, she clarified that the picture is from 2018, and was taken at an event for women judges and lawyers. Justice Ayesha Malik, who was then a judge of the Lahore High Court, was invited as a chief guest at that event, Omer added.
Justice Ayesha Malik was indeed appointed as the first female judge of the Supreme Court in January 2022. Contrary to Shah Owais Noorani’s claim, she was not a Justice of the Supreme Court at the time the picture was taken.
The two women in the picture are lawyers, Khadija Siddiqi, on the right, and Fatima Shaheen on the left. Khadija Siddiqi posted the same image, on 25 September 2018, on her Facebook page. According to the caption, the picture shows, “Her ladyship Justice Ayesha Malik and Fatima at #VAW18”. Barrister and TV Anchor Fatima Shaheen was tagged in the image.
Following the hashtag #VAW18 on Facebook, Soch Fact Check also found photo albums of the 2018 Violence Against Women (VAW18) event on Facebook, posted by Women in Law – an initiative that brings together female lawyers of Pakistan on their Facebook page. The picture shows Justice Ayesha Malik with different lawyers.
Although Siddiqi is representing various PTI members in cases related to Imran Khan’s unlawful marriage and the 9 May 2023 attack, she was not working with PTI at the time this picture was taken. She graduated from law school in 2019, a year after the picture with Justice Malik was taken. The other woman in the picture, Fatima Shaheen is the current host of a TV program at PTV World and is not associated with the PTI.
It is important to note that the picture was taken at a 2018 event on violence against women, organised for lawyers and judges in Lahore, and not a political event of any party.
Virality
On X, the misleading post was shared here and here.
It was also shared here on Facebook.
Conclusion: Posts on social media claiming that a picture shows Supreme Court Justice Ayesha Malik standing alongside women members of the PTI are misleading. The image shows Justice Malik standing with two lawyers, at an event from 2018, and not official members of the PTI.
Background image in cover photo: Getty Images
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