Maleeka Bokhari: Biography, Education, Legal Career, Years in Parliament and Life After the PTI (2026)

Who is Maleeka Bokhari?

Here is the simplest way to describe her. Maleeka Bokhari was a lawyer who spent five years in politics and then went back to being a lawyer.

She was never a crowd-puller. Her work in government was technical: drafting laws, steering them through committees and defending them in the house. She became the face of the PTI government’s legal reforms for women and children.

Her political career ended abruptly in May 2023, in a fortnight that included two arrests, a jail and a press conference. What makes her story different from many others of that month is what came next. She did not join another party. She picked up her profession where she had left it.

Maleeka Bokhari treated politics as a term of service, not a career. When it ended, she had something to return to, and that is rarer in Pakistani politics than it should be.

Education and training

She trained as a lawyer in Britain.

• She took a law degree with honours in 2007 and won a scholarship named after a well-known British human rights lawyer for her academic results.
• She completed the Bar Vocational Course, the practical training for barristers.
• She was called to the Bar of England and Wales, again on a scholarship.

That makes her a barrister, a title Pakistanis use for lawyers who qualified at one of the four Inns of Court in London.

The lawyer before politics

Back in Pakistan she worked in commercial law.

• She was with a leading corporate law firm.
• She served as senior legal counsel for one of the country’s large business groups, with interests in hotels and energy.
• A legal directory lists her as a partner in an Islamabad firm.

Corporate lawyers draft contracts, advise on regulation and settle disputes between companies. It is detailed, document-heavy work. It turned out to be useful training for her next job.

Into Parliament, 2018

In the general election of July 2018 the PTI won enough seats in Punjab to claim a large share of the seats reserved for women. She was on the party’s list and entered the National Assembly in August 2018, aged thirty-three.

On 7 September 2018 Prime Minister Imran Khan appointed her Parliamentary Secretary for Law and Justice.

What the job involved

The law ministry is the government’s legal workshop. Every bill that any ministry wants passed goes through it for drafting. Its minister defends the government’s laws in Parliament.

The parliamentary secretary is the minister’s deputy inside the house.

• She answers members’ questions on the ministry’s behalf.
• She moves bills and explains them clause by clause in committee.
• She negotiates with opposition members over wording.

For a trained drafter, it was a natural fit. Over three and a half years she handled a long list of bills.

How a law is made

To see what she did, it helps to know the steps.

When Parliament is not sitting, the President can issue an ordinance, a temporary law that lasts 120 days unless Parliament extends or passes it. Imran Khan’s government used ordinances often, because it did not control the Senate. Critics said this bypassed Parliament.

The laws she is associated with

Three pieces of legislation from her time are most often linked with her name.

The anti-rape law

In September 2020 a woman was raped in front of her children after her car broke down on a motorway near Lahore. The crime shocked the country. The government promised a new law.

An ordinance followed in late 2020, and Parliament passed it as an Act in 2021. Its main features:

She was one of the main people who explained and defended the law in public. Rights groups welcomed most of it. They objected to one part of the original ordinance, which allowed chemical castration of repeat offenders; that clause was dropped when Parliament passed the Act.

The Zainab Alert law

Named after a six-year-old girl murdered in Kasur in 2018, this law set up a national alert and response system for missing children. It obliges police to register a case within hours of a child being reported missing.

Women’s property rights

Another law gave ombudsmen the power to restore property to women who had been deprived of their inheritance, without the years of litigation that such cases normally take.

Recognition abroad

In March 2021 the World Economic Forum named her one of its Young Global Leaders, a list of people under forty from around the world whom it considers promising. She was one of very few Pakistani politicians to have been chosen.

April 2022 to May 2023

Imran Khan’s government was removed by a vote of no confidence in April 2022. She lost her post with it. Along with other PTI members she submitted her resignation from the National Assembly; her membership formally ended in January 2023, when the Speaker accepted a large batch of resignations.

She remained a party spokeswoman on legal matters through the following year.

Two arrests

On 9 May 2023 Imran Khan was arrested. Protests broke out, and military buildings were attacked in several cities. A sweeping crackdown on the PTI began.

She was one of a number of PTI women detained in those weeks. Several were released by one court and re-arrested at the gate under a different order.

The press conference

On the evening of 25 May 2023 she told reporters that she was leaving the PTI and giving up politics.

According to press reports, she:

• condemned the attacks of 9 May;
• said nobody had pressured her into the decision;
• said she wanted to give her time to her profession and her family, and mentioned her mother’s health.

Two other party figures made the same announcement that day.

How it was read

The PTI’s position on all such statements was that they were extracted under pressure, after detention. The government’s position was that people were leaving a party that had attacked the state.

In her case observers noted the timing: the announcement came within hours of her release from jail. They also noted what did not follow. Many of those who left the PTI that month joined new parties formed to receive them. She joined none.

The travel ban

Leaving politics did not immediately end her difficulties.

Her name had been placed on a list that barred her from leaving the country. A press report, apparently from early 2024, says she appealed publicly to be allowed to travel to Australia, where her sister was seriously ill. The report says the Chief Minister of Punjab acted on the appeal and her name was removed.

The lists that stop people travelling

The second and third have been criticised by the courts because people are placed on them without notice and discover it only at the airport.

Back to the law

She has since rebuilt her legal career on two continents.

• In Pakistan she is listed as a partner in an Islamabad law firm.
• In October 2025 a set of barristers’ chambers in London, known for criminal and regulatory work, announced that she had become a member after completing a probationary period. It lists her practice as covering international, criminal and regulatory law.

So the woman who helped write Pakistan’s law on sexual offences now argues criminal cases at the English Bar.

What it means to join chambers

The English Bar works differently from a law firm, so the announcement needs a word of explanation.

Barristers in England are self-employed. They group together in chambers, sharing offices, clerks and a reputation, but each runs his or her own practice. Getting into a good set is hard. A newcomer first serves a trial period. Only if the existing members vote to keep her does she become a tenant, a full member.

For a lawyer who qualified in London years ago and then built a career in Islamabad, winning a place in an established criminal set is a real professional achievement. It also gives her a base outside Pakistan, which, for someone who was on a travel ban list not long ago, has an obvious value.

Women in the crackdown of 2023

Her arrests were part of something new in Pakistani politics.

In earlier crackdowns, women political workers were seldom jailed in numbers. In May 2023 that changed. Dozens of women connected with the PTI were arrested in Punjab and Islamabad. Some were held for a few days. Several well-known figures were held for many months.

Their lawyers complained of repeated re-arrests: a woman would be granted bail in one case and detained in another before she could leave the prison. Courts criticised the practice more than once.

Those who left the party at press conferences were generally released and left alone. Those who refused stayed in jail. That contrast is the reason so many people doubt that the announcements of that month were freely made, and it is also the reason it is hard to judge any one person who made one.

What supporters and critics say

Supporters say she was among the most competent members of the PTI’s government, that she did serious work on laws protecting women and children, and that she left public life with dignity when it became impossible. They point to her professional success since as proof of her ability.

Critics come from two directions. PTI loyalists say she abandoned the party in its hardest hour while other women stayed in prison for months. Opponents of the PTI recall that as a law officer she defended the government’s heavy use of ordinances and its accountability drive against the opposition. Some rights lawyers add that the anti-rape law, for all its promise, was poorly carried out.

Each view has merit. She was a capable legislator, and she did step away when others did not. Nobody but she knows what staying would have cost.

Words used in this article

Timeline: Maleeka Bokhari at a glance

Why her story matters

• It shows what reserved seats can add. A specialist with no constituency brought real expertise to the law ministry.
• It shows the gap between passing laws and enforcing them. The reforms she worked on are only as good as the courts and clinics built to deliver them.
• It shows one way out of politics. In a country where politicians rarely have another profession, she had one.

To see how the assembly she served in works, read our explainer on the National Assembly and our plain-English guide to Pakistan’s politics.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Wikipedia, “Maleeka Bokhari” — as last edited on 15 September 2026.
• Aaj English, “Maleeka Bokhari, Jamshed and Mussarat Cheema quit politics and PTI” — 25 May 2023.
• Dawn, report on leaders leaving the PTI — May 2023.
• Red Lion Chambers, “Chambers welcomes new member Maleeka Bokhari” — October 2025.
• The Legal 500, lawyer profile: Maleeka Bokhari
• ProPakistani, “Female PTI MNA chosen as World Economic Forum Young Global Leader” — 10 March 2021.
• Pakistan Observer, “PTI lawmaker Maleka Bukhari named Young Global Leader by WEF”