ISLAMABAD: Shabana Mahmood, a British-Pakistani member of parliament from Birmingham, was sworn in as the UK’s new Justice Minister at a ceremony at the Royal Courts of Justice in London this week, making her the first Muslim woman to head the Ministry of Justice.
The 43-year-old Labour lawyer has been the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood since 2010 and held various shadow deputy ministerial and shadow cabinet roles under party leaders Ed Miliband, Harriet Harman and Keir Starmer between 2010 and 2024.
“It is an honour to take the oath of office as Lord Chancellor today,” Mahmood, 43, said in her inaugural address on Monday. “There was a little girl in Small Heath, one of the poorest areas of Birmingham, who worked the till in her parents’ corner shop…”
“I have great respect for this profession, not just as a former barrister but as the son of immigrants. My parents were not steeped in Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, as I would become. But they came to the UK from rural Kashmir with a strong sense that this country was different – that there were rules, some written and some unwritten, that we had to follow.”
Speaking about his inspirations, Mahmood mentioned Elwyn Jones, who served as Lord Chancellor for five years from 1974 to 1979.
“I would very much like to emulate his longevity. He is said to have been the first Welsh-speaking Lord Chancellor for centuries,” she said, “and I would be interested to know what he would have thought of the first Urdu-speaking Lord Chancellor.”
“I’ve carried a lot of identity baggage in this career, which is a privilege but also a burden. … So I hope that at the very least, my appointment will show the next girl at Small Heath, or wherever it may be, that even the oldest office in this country is within the reach of all of us.”
Mahmoud concluded by quoting Chapter 4, Verse 135 of the Quran: “O you who believe! Stand firm as witnesses for Allah for justice, with yourselves, and with your parents, and with your relatives, and with the rich and the poor, for Allah is best able to protect both.”
“This is a fundamental expression of how we as Muslims view justice in our interactions with the world,” Mahmoud said. “It puts justice above all else,” the attorney general said.
Originally from Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, Mahmood was born in Birmingham in 1980 and lived in Taif, Saudi Arabia from 1981 to 1986. Her father worked as a civil engineer in desalination. She then grew up in Birmingham. Her mother worked in a corner grocery store that the family bought after returning to the UK. Her father became leader of the local Labour Party and Mahmood helped him campaign in local elections as a teenager.
Mahmood graduated from Lincoln College, Oxford University in 2002 and won a scholarship to complete the Barrister’s Vocational Course at the Inns of Court Law School in 2003. As a barrister, his area of specialisation is Professional Indemnity.
