Sahar Z. Bandial is an Advocate of the High Courts and a member of the adjunct faculty at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law, LUMS, where she has taught for the past ten years. Her practice and scholarship centre on gender and the law, complemented by a broader litigation and advisory practice spanning constitutional, human rights, labour and workplace safety, family, banking, company law and commercial law.
Sahar has particular expertise in matters that touch upon human rights, women’s rights, and gender-based violence both through public interest litigation and legislative work. In the last few years, Sahar has been counsel in landmark public interest cases before the Lahore High Court including Sadaf Aziz v Federation of Pakistan (2021), which declared the two-finger test illegal and unconstitutional, Subhay Khan v Secretary Labour (2019), which led to the promulgation of the Punjab Domestic Workers Act, 2019, and Shabnam Dil Muhammad v DPO (2022), which led to the notification and implementation of the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act, 2016. Her legislative and policy work span rape law reform, domestic workers’ rights, maternity benefits, women’s right to matrimonial property, and sexual and reproductive rights. Sahar has also undertaken policy and consultancy work with the World Bank Group and Equality Now on workplace safety and harassment, sexual violence against women, child marriage, female genital mutilation, and marital rape.
At SAHSOL, Sahar has taught Legal Research and Writing, Drafting Legal Instruments and Contract Law. She will be currently teaching a course titled “Women and the Criminal Law: The Pursuit of Justice.”
She is currently a member of the Institute of Good Governance, and is on the board of the Digital Rights Foundation. In 2021, the Gender Security Project named her among 100 women from the Global South working in law, policy, and peacebuilding. Sahar holds a law degree from the University of Cambridge, UK and a B.A. (Hons.) from Wellesley College, USA.