LAHORE, July 28: The legal fraternity on Monday expressed reservations about the recent government-MMA parleys on the LFO and said that compromise on the uniform issue would be against the 1973 Constitution.

Supreme Court Bar Association president Hamid Khan and office-bearers of other bar associations and councils told a press conference that the lawyers community would not make any compromise on the LFO.

Referring to press reports about Sunday’s parleys on the LFO, the SCBA president said that Gen Pervez Musharraf could not become president of the country on any legal touchstone. He said even last year’s presidential referendum did not have the overriding power over constitutional requirements regarding qualifications and method of electing a president.

“We want to make it clear to all political parties that no person in military uniform can remain president of the country and even for a period of two years following his retirement from the service of armed forces such person cannot contest a presidential election,” Mr Khan maintained.

He said that by virtue of the slightest flexibility shown by any political party on the issue of president’s uniform, Gen Musharraf would get another five years as president. He said that any political party showing flexibility on the LFO would be considered a government partner in subverting the Constitution.

When asked that the Lahore High Court had already held in one of its recent judgments that there was no constitutional impediment to Gen Musharraf’s decision to remain in military uniform till the date of his own choice, Mr Khan said: “None of the court in the country is above the law and courts cannot give a ruling contravening to the Constitution. The Supreme Court has already held that any judgment passed by a court against the spirit of the Constitution can be set aside even by a civil judge”.

Lahore High Court Bar Association president Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari said the 1973 Constitution was very clear on the point that no military man could be accepted as president of the country.

“How can we accept a person as president who has got his hands stained with the blood of millions of Afghans killed during the US-led forces attacks on Afghanistan?” he questioned. Mr Ansari made it clear that he would abide by the policy decisions of the lawyers’ joint action committee and dispelled the impression that he was towing the line of the MMA on the LFO. He hoped that the MMA would not back out from its undertaking which it gave to the lawyers regarding the support of the latter’s stance on the LFO and wouldn’t make any compromise on it.

He accused Gen Musharraf of pursuing anti-Pakistan agenda, saying he had made up his mind to send the troops to Iraq and even to recognize Israel in defiance of a consensus evolved among the masses.

Pakistan Bar Council executive committee chairman Kazim Khan said that if any political party compromized on the LFO, it would lose support in masses.