February 5, 2026
Curtain Raiser
LAHORE
The Asma Jahangir Legal Aid Cell announces the 6th Asma Jahangir Conference, tilted ‘Erosion of Fundamental Rights and Resistance Across Borders’.
The Asma Jahangir Legal Aid Cell (AGHS) will be hosting the Asma Jahangir Conference (AJCONF) on February 7 and 8, 2026, at the Faletti’s Hotel in Lahore. The two-day event, titled ‘Erosion of Fundamental Rights and Resistance Across Borders’, is organized in collaboration with the Supreme Court Bar Association and Pakistan Bar Council.
The AJCONF is committed to providing an uncensored platform for all stakeholders to have a constructive dialogue on critical human rights issues. The opening ceremony will be attended by ministers, leaders of bar associations, international jurists, journalists and several United Nations Special Procedures Mandate Holders. Political leadership from across the spectrum in Pakistan and the wider South Asian region will be speaking at the event.
The event is set to feature approximately 18 sessions with over 120 speakers from diverse backgrounds — senior high court justices, legal experts, prominent international jurists, journalists, experts, media personnel, and human rights activists — will participate in the moot. Notably, the conference will welcome more than 150 practicing female lawyers who will travel to Lahore from different bar councils and associations nationwide.
AJCONF recognizes the critical juncture at which South Asia, especially Pakistan, finds itself in shaping its political and democratic future. Given this challenging background, the conference seeks to move forward with the same courage and determination that Asma Jahangir embodied throughout her professional career. Some of the more prominent themes of the conference will be Free Speech and Expression, Gender Discrimination, Vulnerable Communities, Breach of International Law, Climate Change and Right to a Fair Trial.
Initially founded by Asma Jahangir, the AGHS, Pakistan’s first female law firm, has evolved into a premier law firm dedicated to providing pro bono legal assistance to marginalized groups including women, children, prisoners, persecuted religious minorities, individuals on death row, and landless farmers.
Referred to as the ‘people’s assembly’, over the years AJCONF has become the largest human rights and legal gathering in Pakistan, with this year’s edition promising to identify obstacles to and offer solutions for the erosion of democratic rights in Pakistan and South Asia.
We invite your participation and media coverage to help shape the discourse on equality and justice at the AJCONF.