LAHORE, Dec 2: The Supreme Court Bar Association on Thursday rejected the federal commercial court saying it was not only aimed at establishing a parallel judiciary but also sounded lack of confidence
in the superior courts established under the constitution.
SCBA vice-president Nazir Ahmad Ghazi said at a news conference lawyers across the country would resist the move. The LHCBA has already taken the same line. He said the government wanted the federal court to be set up through an act of parliament in the name of expediting adjudication in commercial, tax and corporate disputes. "The step will transgress and violate the constitution which the lawyers community won't allow," he added.
Another legal infirmity of the proposed federal court, according to him, was that its presiding officers would be appointed by the executive and they would not enjoy constitutional protection which the members of the superior judiciary enjoyed.
Under the circumstances, he said, the federal court would be reduced to mere hireling of the executive which would undermine the judicial system as a whole. Mr Ghazi also opposed the mushroom growth of law colleges and said they were mere commercial institutions which hardly imparted quality legal education.
"Such colleges have already played havoc with the legal community which is now infested with young people lacking badly in professional competence." He demanded a body to regulate legal education and prescribe curricula to safeguard the profession.
He proposed a lawyers' hostel at Islamabad to provide affordable boarding and lodging facilities to middle class lawyers in the federal capital. He also demanded accommodation of more and more lawyers as legal advisers regardless of their political affiliation. He said the practice of giving this facility to lawyers affiliated only with the ruling party as a favour should come to an end.
CABINET: The LHC allowed Advocate M. D. Tahir to file in two weeks an amended petition against the expansion of cabinet. Justice Mohammad Muzammil Khan allowed the petitioner-lawyer to file the amended petition when Deputy Attorney-General Danishwar Malik disputed the contents of the plea on the ground that the petitioner was raising question against the ministers who had not been impleaded as party to the dispute.
The petition was filed when the number of federal ministers was 20 and has now reached 72, including ministers of state and advisers. The court fixed Jan 13 as the date for arguments on the petition. The petitioner disputed the expansion in the cabinet pleading that a poor country could not afford such a huge cabinet.
SUMMONED: The LHC has summoned Faisalabad CIA DSP Farooq Gondal to appear in person on Dec 9 to explain why he harassed some goldsmiths despite court orders. Seven goldsmith of a market, including Mohammad Rauf, had submitted through Advocate Arif Chaudhry, a contempt petition against the DSP alleging that he had intimidated them although the court had restrained him from harassing them.
