17 August 2004	Tuesday	30 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

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

LAHORE, Aug 16: The Lawyers Joint Action Committee has called upon bar councils and associations across the country to observe Aug 18 as a black day to protest "subversion of parliamentary democracy and undermining of the National Assembly."

The day coincides with the byelection in Attock and Tharparker from where finance minister Shaukat Aziz is contesting for a National Assembly seat to become prime minister.

Pakistan Bar Council vice-chairperson Rasheed A Razvi, also a former judge of the Sindh High Court, on Monday sent to the provincial bar councils and bar associations a resolution adopted at a JAC meeting in Lahore on July 18. It set Aug 18 for the observance of black day.

He advised the bar leaders throughout the country to hoist black flags and hold meetings to adopt a resolution in protest against the nomination of Shaukat Aziz as the next prime minister.

The resolution said procurement of the resignation of Mir Zafaraullah Khan Jamali and nomination of one temporary and the other permanent prime minister was a deliberate attempt to subvert the federal parliamentary democracy and establish a one-man rule in the country. It said Mr Aziz was being imposed by ignoring all the other MNAs and this act amounted to bringing the national legislature into contempt.

The resolution also said Mr Aziz had no roots in Pakistan nor had he served the country in any capacity in the past. This spoke volumes for vulnerability of the rulers to the dictates of foreign powers, which wanted to fulfil their vested interests.

Meanwhile, PBC members - Muhammad Kazim Khan and Raja Mahmood Akhtar - Supreme Court Bar Association Vice-President Ali Ahmad Kurd, Lahore Bar Association President Mirza Haneef Baig and Punjab Bar Council members - Shahid Mahmood Bhatti and Muhammad Ahsan Bhoon - have appealed to the legal fraternity to join hands in protest against the nomination of Mr Aziz as the future prime minister.

In a press statement, the bar leaders also sought a political solution to the problems in Balochistan. They said all the Baloch nationalist leaders wanted a negotiated settlement of the issue, but the government was insisting on armed operation.