Peshawar High Court orders separate queue for transgender voters

Peshawar High Court (PHC) orders separate queue for transgender voters for February 8 polls.

PHC directed the returning officer of a provincial assembly constituency, where a transgender person is a candidate, to arrange separate queues for her community members at PK-81 polling stations in Peshawar.

The PHC verdict was issued on February 2, 2024, highlighting the lack of specific documents for the transgender quota, as no such provision currently exists in the electoral system.

Trans rights activist Sobia Khan is contesting elections as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s first transgender individual to participate in general polls from Peshawar’s PK-81 constituency.

The directives from the court were given while disposing of a petition of Ms Sobia seeking multiple reliefs from the court, including the allocation of special seats in the national and provincial assemblies for her community.

The petitioner, whose name on her CNIC is Mohammad Bilal, insisted on when the high court would order the fixing of ‘quota’ in assemblies for transgender persons.

Lawyers Sahibzada Riazatul Haq, Mehwish Muhib Kakakhel and Batool Rafaqat represented the petitioner.

Advocate Mohsin Kamran Siddique appeared for the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Lawyers for the petitioner said that their client was born as a transgender person but as there was no separate category for the community in computerised national identity cards, her father got her CNIC made as a man.