Christian Lawyers in Pakistan
Pakistani Christians are a small and largely poor community, and the Christian lawyers in Pakistan who can stand beside them are few. This page describes the state of Christian advocates in Pakistan, why the community needs lawyers of its own, and the role of Advocate Soba Sorya, the Founding Patron in Chief, as the most senior among them.
The state of Christian lawyers in Pakistan
Christians in Pakistan number in the millions, yet the Christian lawyers in Pakistan who practise before the higher courts can almost be counted by hand. Most Christian families cannot afford to send a son or daughter through law college; the few who reach the bar often have no senior of their own faith to guide them, and many leave the profession or the country within a few years.
The result is felt in every district court. When a Christian labourer is accused under sections 295 or 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code, when a daughter is abducted and a court is told she converted freely, when a church or a graveyard is occupied, the family looks for a lawyer who understands both the law and the pressure they live under, and usually finds none.
Faith, pressure and the courtroom
- A Christian advocate understands the pressure a persecuted family lives under, because he has felt it himself
- He is less likely to abandon the case when threats begin, and less likely to advise silence or settlement
- He knows the Christian Divorce Act 1869 and the Succession Act 1925, which many general practitioners never open
- He fears God more than men, which is the only fear that holds a lawyer steady when a crowd gathers outside the court
- He can speak to church leaders, families and the press in a language they trust
- He stays, and trains the next Christian lawyer after him
The most senior practising Christian lawyer in Pakistan
Advocate Soba Sorya was enrolled in 1982 and has practised without a break since, before the lower courts and, from 1996, before the Lahore High Court. That record makes him the most senior practising Christian lawyer in Pakistan and, since he founded Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan in 2020, the national Patron in Chief of Christian lawyers in Pakistan.
The title is not ceremonial. As Founding Patron in Chief he takes the hardest cases himself, advises the advocates of CLAP on theirs, speaks for the Alliance on the rights of Christians, and carries the standing of forty years at the bar into every room where the community needs a voice.
Mentoring young Pakistani Christian lawyers
Every young Christian lawyer we train is a courtroom the persecuted will never face alone. Through Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan, Advocate Soba Sorya funds LLB and LLM studies for young believers from poor families and attaches each of them to a senior advocate. Students attend court with their mentor, learn drafting, and take part in real cases before they are enrolled.
Christian advocates in Pakistan who share this calling, and law students who wish to join it, are welcome to write to the office of the Patron in Chief or to apply through clap.com.pk.
Write to the office of the Patron in Chief
For legal aid, a forced conversion or blasphemy case, a press enquiry or an invitation to speak. Every message reaches the office of Founding Patron in Chief Advocate Soba Sorya in Lahore.
