August 28, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Saani 18,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

LAHORE, Aug 27: Supreme Court Bar Association president Hamid Khan said the postponement of the general elections in the present circumstances would endanger the federation.

Speaking at a press conference along with the office-bearers of the Pakistan and Punjab Bar councils, Lahore High Court and Lahore Bar Association about the country-wide black day observed by the lawyers on the call given by the Bar bodies here on Tuesday, Hamid Khan said the government would lose its mandate if the general elections were not held in time.

They said the Bar was fully united against the Legal Framework Order, 2002, and would neither consider nor allow it to become a part of the Constitution under any circumstances.

They said the Bar considered the LFO an interim order which would remain in force only as long as those who had promulgated it remained in power.

They said the Bar would chalk out its future course of action against the LFO by convening a meeting of the representatives of its associations from all parts of the country by mid-September as the high courts were closed for vacation till September 9.

They said the lawyers were not supporting or favouring any political party. They wanted to move ahead with all the sensitive sections of society. They said no lawyer had advised the government to promulgate the LFO. The Bar had always acted on the principle of not supporting the military regimes.

They said the Bar was not with any political party but it favoured maximum participation of its members in the general elections so that the field was not left open for the king’s party. They said the struggle of the Bar was only for the supremacy of the law and safeguarding of the Constitution. They wanted the Constitution to remain intact.

They said the lawyers belonging to political parties had participated in the meeting convened by the Bar on Aug 17 and even those belonging to the so-called king’s party had supported its unanimous stand on the LFO.

Pakistan Bar Council vice-chairman Ashraf Wahla and members Raja Mahmood Akhtar and Hafiz Abdul Rahman Ansari, Supreme Court Bar Association secretary Sahibzada Anwar Hamid, Lahore High Court Bar Association vice-president Khawar Ikram Bhatti and secretary Shahid Mahmood Bhatti, Punjab Bar Council members Masood Chishti, Tasawwar Husain Qureshi and Arif Chaudhry and Lahore Bar Association president Nisar Ahmad Kausar also addressed the press conference.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Bar Council executive committee chairman Abdul Haleem Pirzada and five members Hafiz Abdul Rahman Ansari, H. A. Shakil Ahmad, Farook H. Naik, Rashid A. Razvi and Abdul Rahim Kazi said in a joint statement that the LFO had introduced a new dictatorship in the presidential form of government.

They said they were of the opinion that the amendments proposed to the Constitution through the LFO were not for smooth and orderly transition as claimed in its preamble but for perpetuation of the present regime dominated by the army generals.