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LAHORE, July 18: The lawyers' community throughout the country has decided to observe a black day on Aug 18, when prime minister-in-waiting Shaukat Aziz is scheduled to contest election from Attock and Tharparker.
The decision was taken by lawyers' Joint Action Committee at a meeting here on Sunday. The JAC observed that Mr Aziz's nomination as the next prime minister "meant a severe blow to the federal parliamentary democracy, demolition of state institutions, further weakening of democracy and paving the way for an autocratic one-man rule with blessings from outside".
Presided over by Pakistan Bar Council vice-chairperson Rasheed Razvi, a former judge of the Sindh High Court, the JAC meeting said in a resolution that the way Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali was removed and Chaudhry Shujaat Husain nominated as the caretaker and Shaukat Aziz as the next prime minister, gave a strong indication that the military rulers were driving the country to a political and economic disaster.
According to the JAC, the country had been in powerful clutches of the military establishment since the Ayub Khan era and undemocratic rule thereafter had added to submission of state institutions to forces that maintained a contemptuous attitude towards people and political organizations.
It was unfortunate that the ruling forces and their agents in the garb of politicians had learnt no lessons from the chequered history of Pakistan and continued to destroy country's political and democratic fabric.
GUJRAT ISSUE: Briefing reporters at the end of the committee meeting, the Pakistan Bar Council vice-chairperson said that lawyers from all over the country would observe a black day on July 28 and hold rallies if the district police officer of Gujrat, Raja Munawwar Husain, was not removed from office.
The decision was taken after listening to Gujrat District Bar president Tariq Javed Warraich who had attended the meeting on a special invitation. Flanked by Supreme Court Bar Association president Tariq Mahmood and Lahore High Court Bar Association president Ahmad Awais, the Pakistan Bar Council vice-chairperson said that lawyers across the country would not attend courts after 10.30am.
Bar bodies were directed to hold meetings and adopt resolutions condemning the "temporary" prime minister and the Punjab chief minister who, the JAC meeting felt, were responsible for causing the situation to deteriorate and making the DPO issue an issue of egotism.
PBC ELECTION: The JAC warned the Punjab government to ensure that the Punjab Bar Council elections were held on schedule or the Pakistan Bar Council would come forward to fulfil the statutory requirement.
The meeting authorized PBC executive committee chairperson Pervez Inayat to prepare and update rolls of lawyers in accordance with a resolution of the Pakistan Bar Council on May 24 under which a whole package of changes in the relevant rules was prepared for the purpose of holding provincial bar council elections.
Mr Razvi condemned the Punjab advocate-general for delaying elections for flimsy reasons and said the Pakistan Bar Council would itself hold elections if he did not announce the election schedule.
The AG's attitude, he said, amounted to violating a statutory duty. He should not interpret the law at his whims but follow other provincial AGs who adopted the Pakistan Bar Council's resolution in the performance of their legal duty.
Mr Razvi said the NWFP bar council had already held its elections and Sindh and Balochistan were following suit. He said the plea being advanced by the Punjab AG meant that he alone understood the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act-1973 and other provincial AGs had no knowledge of the law.
SUPREME COURT VACANCIES: The Lawyers Joint Action Committee sought to fill Supreme Court vacancies immediately. Mr Razvi said the JAC demanded that chief justices of all provincial high courts be elevated to the apex court without exception and senior puisne judges of high courts be appointed in their place.
He said vacancies in the Supreme Court must be filled in accordance with the Al-Jihad Trust Case-1996 in consultation with the chief justice of Pakistan.
