Makhdoom Ali Khan

Makhdoom Ali Khan (Urdu: مخدوم علی خان; born 9 January 1954), is a Pakistani lawyer who is a Senior Advocate Supreme Court.

After a short stint teaching constitutional law and public international law at Keele University in the United Kingdom he returned to Karachi, Pakistan, and joined the offices of Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (former Attorney General Pakistan and current Ambassador at Large), who was Attorney General at the time, and worked there for two years.

[3] Makhdoom Ali Khan appeared for Akbar Bugti when the Provincial Assembly of Balochistan was dismissed and became the first lawyer in the country to successfully argue and secure the restoration of a dissolved legislature.

He came to the notice of the Pakistan Government after he successfully negotiated with the military regime and the newly constituted National Accountability Bureau for the release of his incarcerated client Sultan Lakhani.

A directive was also issued by President Pervez Musharraf at around this time that no Bilateral Investment Treaty by any Government department or ministry was to be signed unless Mr. Khan was consulted.

As Attorney General he successfully represented the GoP to overturn through a review petition the judgement of the Supreme Court which had declared bank interest to be unIslamic.

Khan advised President Musharraf to seek advisory opinion from the Supreme Court when the government of the religious parties sought to set up a moral police (Hasba bill) in the North West Frontier Province.

His argument that the proposed legislation was unconstitutional succeeded and the Governor NWFP was restrained from signing into law the Bill passed by the Frontier Assembly.

[7] Makhdoom Ali Khan was part of the three member Constitution Committee[8] (along with former Law Minister Zahid Hamid and former Judge of the Supreme Court, Retd.

He is known to be one of the four chief architects behind the Women's Protection Bill; the other three being Haziqul Khairi, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi and Muhammad Khalid Masud, the passing of which was facilitated by the complete support of Pervez Musharraf and the whole-hearted backing of the MQM and the Pakistan Peoples Party in the National Assembly.

Though the PML-Q opposed it initially and created hurdles to it becoming law they later reluctantly supported it after some of its provisions were diluted to their liking to appease some conservative Islamic scholars who were against the bill completely.

He resigned from the office of Attorney General (and thus also the ex officio Chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council) on 20 July 2007, citing as his reasons that his legal advice was consistently ignored and that the Reference was a huge failure for the GoP[9] and stated that it was disappointing that the concerned authorities were all placing the blame on others rather than accepting responsibility, making him the third longest serving Attorney General in the history of Pakistan.

Dawn and Jang Group both printed stories claiming Mr. Khan was responsible for drafting the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) after the imposition of emergency in Pakistan.