Chaudhary Aitzaz Ahsan ( Punjabi, ; born 27 September 1945) is a

Pakistani Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...

politician and lawyer. He served as the Leader of the House in the Senate of Pakistan from 1994 to 1996, and as the Leader of the Opposition from 1996 till 2000 and again from 2012 to 2018. He was elected a member of the

Senate of Pakistan The Senate of Pakistan, Constitution of Pakistan, constitutionally the House of the Federation, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Pakistan. As of 2023, It has a maximum membership of 96, of which 92 are elected by the Member of th ...

from

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

in 1994. His tenure ended in March 2018. Born in

Murree Murree () is a mountain resort city in the northernmost region of the Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab province of Pakistan. Lying in the Galyat region of the Pir Panjal Range under the western Himalayas, it forms the outskirts of the Islamabad–Rawal ...

, Ahsan studied law at the Government College,

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

and received a

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

from the

Downing College Downing College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 950 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to the university between 1596 and 1869, ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. Ahsan became the Planning and Development Minister for

in 1975. After the

Operation Fair Play The 1977 Pakistani military coup (codenamed Operation Fair Play) was the second military coup in the history of Pakistan. Taking place on 5 July 1977, it was carried out by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the chief of army staff, overthrowing the gover ...

coup, Ahsan became a prominent figure of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. Ahsan was elected to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

from Lahore in 1988 and served as the

interior minister of Pakistan Interior may refer to: Arts and media * ''Interior'' (Degas) (also known as ''The Rape''), painting by Edgar Degas * ''Interior'' (play), 1895 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck * ''The Interior'' (novel), by Lisa See * Interior de ...

under

Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. She was also the first woman elected to head a democratic governmen ...

's first government and served until 1990. Ahsan was elected as a member of the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

in 1994. He re-joined the cabinet after Benazir's re-election, and went on to serve as the Minister for Law, Justice and Human Rights until 1997. He served as the minority leader in the Senate between 1996 and 1999. Ahsan was elected to the National Assembly again in 2002, and went on to serve as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association between 2007 and 2008. Ahsan was elected to the Senate in 2012 and in 2015 became the minority leader.

Early life and education

Ahsan was born on 27 September 1945, in

British Punjab The Punjab Province, officially the Province of the Punjab, was a province of British India, with its capital in Lahore and summer capitals in Murree and Simla. At its greatest extent, it stretched from the Khyber Pass to Delhi; and from th ...

. He belongs to a Punjabi

Jat The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in l ...

family of the Warraich clan, and grew up in

. He received his early education from

Aitchison College Aitchison College is an elite private, boarding school, boarding Junior School, Secondary School for boys in Lahore, Pakistan. It has educated Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime ministers, including Imran Khan, Feroz Khan Noon, president of Pakist ...

. He then enrolled in

Government College Lahore The Government College University (colloquially known as GCU; Punjabi, Urdu: ) is a public research university in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded as Government College, Lahore, in 1864 under British administration, it became a university ...

and later studied law at

Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 950 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to the university between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the oldest of ...

. He was at

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

in 1967. He then appeared in

Central Superior Services The Central Superior Services (CSS; or Civil Service) is a permanent elite civil service authority and the civil service that is responsible for running the bureaucratic operations and government secretariats and directorates of the Cabinet of ...

examination where he reportedly topped. However, he did not join the government service.

Political career

Ahsan returned to Pakistan in 1967. He joined

Pakistan Peoples Party The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is a political party in Pakistan and one of the three major List of political parties in Pakistan, Pakistani political parties alongside the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. With a Cent ...

(PPP) and began his political career in 1970s. He was elected as the member of the

Provincial Assembly of the Punjab The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, also known as the Punjab Assembly, is the supreme legislative body of Punjab, a province of Pakistan. It convenes at the Assembly Building in Lahore, the capital of Punjab. It is a unicameral legislature o ...

for first time on the ticket of PPP j on by-elections held following the Pakistan General elections of 1977 from Gujrat constituency. He was inducted in the provincial cabinet of Punjab and was appointed the Provincial Minister for information, planning and development. Ahsan was in his twenties during his tenure as provincial minister. He resigned from the provincial cabinet and left PPP following the incident in which Punjab Police opened fire on a rally of lawyers during the

Pakistan National Alliance The Pakistan National Alliance (Urdu: پاکستان قومی اتحاد, Acronym: PNA), was a populist and consolidated right and left political alliance, consisting of nine political parties of the country. Formed in 1977, the country's leadi ...

demonstrations against the alleged rigging of elections by the PPP government in 1977. Ahsan joined

Tehrik-e-Istiqlal Tehreek-e-Istiqlal () was a political party in Pakistan. It was once the second most popular political party in Pakistan. It was formed by Air Marshal Retd. Asghar Khan in 1970. In the 1970s, Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, many prominent public figures were a ...

. He rejoined the PPP following the

and actively became involved with the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy and for his participation in the MRD, he was repeatedly imprisoned. He was reportedly jailed for two years during Zia -ul-Haq presidency. He was elected as the member of the National Assembly of Pakistan on PPP ticket for the first time in Pakistan General elections of 1988 from Lahore constituency. He was inducted into federal cabinet and was appointed the Minister for Law and Justice, along with the additional portfolio of the Ministry of Interior and Narcotics Control. It was during this tenure that he provided list of the Khalistani separatists to India, thus sabotaged Pakistani plan to avenge India for its role in 1971 war. He was re-elected as the member of the National Assembly of Pakistan on PPP ticket for the second time in Pakistan General elections of 1990 from Lahore constituency. He lost the Pakistan General elections of 1993 to Humayun Akhtar Khan of

Pakistan Muslim League The Pakistan Muslim League (; known as PML), is the name of several different Pakistani political parties that have dominated the centre-right platform in the country. The ''Muslim League'' (the original successor of the All-India Muslim ...

. In 1994 he was elected as the member of the

for the first time representing PPP, where he sat as Leader of the Opposition until 1999. In Pakistan General elections of 2002, he ran for the membership of the National Assembly on PPP seat from two constituencies. He was re-elected as the member of the National Assembly for the third time from constituencies of Bahawalpur and Lahore. He retained his Lahore seat. Ahsan did not run in the Pakistan General elections of 2008 due to his involvement in the

Lawyers' Movement The Lawyers' Movement (), also known as the Movement for the Restoration of Judiciary or the Black Coat Protests, was the popular mass protest movement initiated by the lawyers of Pakistan in response to the former president and army chief Pervez ...

for the restoration of deposed judges. Ahsan was elected as the member of the Senate for the second time in the

2012 Pakistani Senate election Senate elections were held in Pakistan on 2 March 2012. Fifty-four of the 100 seats in the Senate were up for election with the winning candidates serving six-year terms. Results By administrative division The following the results of the el ...

on technocrat seat representing PPP. In 2013, he reportedly resigned from Senate membership. In 2013, Ahsan became opposition leader in the Senate. In 2015, he for the second time became opposition leader in the Senate. In late August 2018, Ahsan was nominated by the PPP as a candidate for the 2018 presidential election according to media reports. On 4 September 2018, he clinched 124 electoral votes behind

Arif Alvi Arif-ur-Rehman Alvi () is a Pakistani politician who served as the 13th President of Pakistan, in office from 2018 to 2024. He was a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from June 2013 to May 2018 and again from August to September 2018. ...

(352) and Fazal-ur-Rehman (184) in the election. The notification of the suspension of his basic membership was accepted by the PPP on 14 October 2022 as a result of Ahsan "going against party discipline". A few days before this, Ahsan openly criticized the Sharifs, the political family that headed the PML(N), which was a coalition partner of the PPP at the time. He also criticized the Chief of Army Staff General

Qamar Javed Bajwa Qamar Javed Bajwa (; born 11 November 1960) is a retired Pakistani four-star general who served as the tenth chief of the Army Staff of Pakistan from 29 November 2016 to 29 November 2022. In 2018, he was ranked 68th in the ''Forbes'' list of ...

in the same speech, accusing him of committing a crime for allegedly helping the Sharifs get acquitted in different corruption cases.

Law career

Professionally, Ahsan is a barrister by law and a senior advocate of the

Supreme Court of Pakistan The Supreme Court of Pakistan (; ''Adālat-e-Uzma Pākistān'') is the apex court in the Judiciary of Pakistan, judicial hierarchy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Established in accordance witPart VIIof the Constitution of Pakistan, it h ...

. He is a senior partner of Aitzaz Ahsan & Associates. Ahsan has represented several high-profile Pakistani personalities including three Prime ministers of Pakistan in various cases such as

Nawaz Sharif Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who served as the 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms, first serving from 1990 to 1993, then ...

and

Yousaf Raza Gillani Yusuf Raza Gilani (born 9 June 1952) is a Pakistani politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Pakistan from 2008 to 2012. He is currently serving as the Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan since 2024. Chairman Gilani served as the acti ...

and former President of Pakistan

Asif Ali Zardari Asif Ali Zardari (born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician serving as the 14th president of Pakistan since 2024, having held the same office from 2008 to 2013. He is the president of Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians and was the ...

. He had served as President of Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. He is known for representing and leading the lawyers campaign to reinstate former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. In 2008, Ahsan was awarded the Asian Human Rights Defender Award by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission in recognition. Ahsan was arrested following Pakistani state of emergency, 2007. He was under house arrest in his house in Lahore for four months. He was released in March 2008. Ahsan is also a noted human rights activist in Pakistan.

Books

Ahsan is the author of the book ''The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan'' and its

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

translation, ''Sindh Sagar Aur Qyam-e-Pakistan'' which presents the cultural history of Pakistan and argues that the Indus region is a distinct entity from the rest of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and constitutes a nation.Aitzaz Ahsan representative for NA-124, Lahore-VII
He has also co-authored the book ''Divided by Democracy'' with Lord Meghnad Desai of the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahsan, Aitzaz Living people 1945 births 20th-century Pakistani lawyers Pakistani Marxists Pakistani democracy activists Pakistani barristers Pakistani prisoners and detainees Pakistani MNAs 1988–1990 Pakistani MNAs 1990–1993 Pakistani MNAs 2002–2007 Pakistan People's Party MNAs Interior ministers of Pakistan Aitchison College alumni Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge Alumni of the Inns of Court School of Law Members of Gray's Inn Government College University, Lahore alumni People from Murree Articles containing video clips Pakistani senators (14th Parliament) Leaders of the House for the Senate of Pakistan Provincial ministers of Punjab Federal ministers of Pakistan Presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan 21st-century Pakistani lawyers Politicians from Lahore Lawyers from Lahore People from Punjab Province (British India) Candidates for President of Pakistan