People sometimes ask me why, after nearly four decades at the bar, I chose in 2020 to gather a group of born-again, Spirit-filled Christian lawyers in Lahore and found Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan (CLAP). The honest answer is that I was tired of watching Christians stand before a court alone.
I was enrolled by the Punjab Bar Council in 1982 and with the Lahore High Court in 1996. I served for twelve years as General Secretary of the Minority Wing of the Pakistan People’s Party in Punjab, as a District Member in Lahore, as Legal Advisor to Pakistan Railways and to the Evacuee Property Trust Board, and for more than ten years with the Centre for Human Rights Education. In every one of those roles the same file kept landing on my desk: a Christian family, a serious charge or a serious loss, and no lawyer.
Three things I wanted the Alliance to be
First, I wanted it to be free for the persecuted. A Christian accused of blasphemy, a family whose daughter has been taken, a brick kiln worker held under a debt that the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act forbids, should never be asked for a fee. CLAP has never charged a persecuted Christian and never will.
Second, I wanted it to be an alliance of believers, not merely of lawyers with Christian names. The men and women who founded it with me know the Lord Jesus Christ and pray before they enter the courtroom. A lawyer who fears God more than men does not walk away when the threats begin.
Third, I wanted it to outlive me. That is why the Alliance funds LLB and LLM studies for young Christians from poor families and pairs them with seniors, so that the next generation of Christian advocates in Pakistan is larger and better prepared than mine.
What the Alliance does today
- Defends blasphemy and forced conversion cases at every level of the courts, from the FIR to the High Court.
- Advises on the everyday law that shapes Christian lives: the Christian Divorce Act 1869, the Succession Act 1925, property, employment and bonded labour.
- Documents and translates persecution accounts for Pakistani Christians seeking asylum in Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
- Trains and mentors young Christian lawyers in Pakistan.
Every office holder of the Alliance serves under my patronage as Founding Patron in Chief, and its only branches are those listed at clap.com.pk. I mention this because others have since used similar names, and families in trouble deserve to know whom they are calling.
Ecclesiastes 4:9 says that two are better than one, because if either of them falls, the other can help him up. In 2020 I decided that standing up alone was no longer enough; it needed an institution. By God’s grace, that institution now exists.
— Founding Patron in Chief Advocate Soba Sorya, Senior Advocate High Court, Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan (CLAP)
