Aitzaz Ahsan

Chaudhary Aitzaz Ahsan (Punjabi, ; born 27 September 1945) is a Pakistani 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 from Punjab in 1994. His tenure ended in March 2018.

Born in Murree, Ahsan studied law at the Government College, Lahore and received an LLM from the Downing College, Cambridge. Ahsan became the Planning and Development Minister for Punjab in 1975. After the Operation Fair Play coup, Ahsan became a prominent figure of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. Ahsan was elected to the National Assembly from Lahore in 1988 and served as the interior minister of Pakistan under Benazir Bhutto's first government and served until 1990.

Ahsan was elected as a member of the Senate 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 Murree, British Punjab. He belongs to a Punjabi Jat family of the Warraich clan, and grew up in Lahore.

He received his early education from Aitchison College. He then enrolled in Government College Lahore and later studied law at Downing College, Cambridge. He was inducted into federal cabinet and was appointed the Minister for Law and Justice, Ahsan did not run in the Pakistan General elections of 2008 due to his involvement in the Lawyers' Movement for the restoration of deposed judges. 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 (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 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 at law and a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

He is known for representing and leading the lawyers campaign to reinstate former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Ahsan was arrested following Pakistani state of emergency, 2007. Ahsan is also a noted human rights activist in Pakistan.

He has also co-authored the book Divided by Democracy with Lord Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics.