by Faran Rafi
Yousaf Saleem from Lahore won a gold medal from University of Punjab in his law degree (LLB) in 2014. He then went on to practice law for two years, fulfilled all the requirements to become a judge and even topped the competitive exams out of 6500 applicants. But during the interview, he was failed and told that he could not become a judge. The reason? Yousaf is blind.
25-year-old Yousaf suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Retinitis Pigmentosa (or RP). Due to this, his vision was only 30-40 per cent when he was a child, but overtime it has completely deteriorated and now he only has light perception.
The chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Saqib Nisar, then took a suo motu notice of this and directed the Lahore High Court to reconsider the matter. His case was reconsidered by the selection committee and Yousaf was selected for the post. He is now set to become Pakistan’s first blind judge.
I met Yousaf at his home in Lahore. As he entered the room, I got up to help him find his way around and sit down. But before I could take a few steps, he swiftly manoeuvred his way through the room and came and sat next to me.
He talks to me about the hurdles that he faced in order to become a judge and his motivation to join this profession.
“I got interested in pursuing a law degree after my intermediate, it was time when there was a lawyer’s movement going on in Pakistan to restore the judiciary. I found the role of lawyers in that, very fascinating,” he says, adding that he also got inspired after reading about the prominent people involved in Pakistan movement, such as Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Dr Muhammad Iqbal, both of whom had studied law.
“I like practicing law, and I have done that too, but I feel being a judge is a better job because I will be directly able to make decisions according to the law and I will be able to provide justice to the people.”
He believes that there are a lot of delays in Pakistan’s justice system. “Some people spend their entire lives, but they are still not able to get justice,” he says, citing a skewed ratio of number of judges to the number of case and delaying tactics as some of the reasons behind this.
Talking about his struggle as a visually impaired person, Yousaf says, “you know you can do things, but it is difficult for you to convince others that you can do them.” He mentions how sometimes people unnecessarily try to help him, without even asking if he needs help – something even I was guilty of doing a while ago.
He says that people with disabilities want to be treated normally and the society must make efforts to bring them to them mainstream. “As a person with disabilities, you have to prove every day that you can do all the things like everyone else, and that has been the hardest challenge of my life.”
Talking about his experience, he says, that even the most educated people sometimes have misconceived notions about persons with disabilities. He shares an anecdote about the time when this person kept asking Yousaf’s friend to act as interpreter between them, assuming that since Yousaf is visually impaired, he would also have problems speaking or hearing.
“One of our biggest problems in the society are that we do not want to communicate with people with disabilities. We don’t want to know how they work or how they want to be dealt by other people.”
When I ask him about his working method, considering a law degree requires a lot of studying, he tells me about JAWS (Job Access With Speech) software. “After the advancements in technology, people with visual impairment can read any book or article using this software,” he tell me, as his computer starts talking to him in a very robotic voice. As Yousaf presses some keys on his keyboard, the computer reads out the words that he is typing. This is how Yousaf got through his college and professional education, and even appeared in professional examinations.
He talks about how there are so many accessibility issues for visually impaired persons in Pakistan. All over the world, electronic copies of books are available, but there is no such mechanism in Pakistan. “Over here, I have to scan everything before reading, it is not like that in the rest of the world,” he says, adding that this might be the biggest hurdle he will face when he takes charge as a judge. “None of the court documents are available electronically.”
Despite all these difficulties, Yousaf is hopeful about the future and is very excited to take oath as a judge. For him, this is nothing extra-ordinary, as he comes from a family of highly accomplished people. Yousaf has two elder sisters, both of whom are also visually impaired. One of them is currently pursuing her PhD in Education. His other sister, Saima Saleem, was the first blind person to clear Pakistan’s civil services exam and then served for five years in Pakistan’s UN missions in Geneva and New York and currently works in the Prime Minister’s office in Islamabad.
Originally published on BBC Hindi on 25th June 2018
FARAN RAFI 