May 18, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1427

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LAHORE, May 17: The ARD Lawyers Coordination Committee said here on Wednesday that leaders of the six-party alliance were meeting in London on July 2 to review and approve the Charter of Democracy signed by heads of the PPP and the PML-N.

“If any component party has a proposal to improve upon the charter, it will be incorporated in it”, committee chairperson Syed Manzoor Husain Gilani told a news conference called here to announce the decisions taken at a meeting a day earlier.

Accompanied by PPP leader Raja Zulqarnain and PML-N leader Khawaja Mahmood Ahmad, Mr Gilani, who is also the chief of an ARD component, Istiqlal Party, said the charter reflected the aspirations of the people of Pakistan who wanted to rid the country of repeated military interventions and a civilian government of popular political organisations.

He said the charter was the continuation of the commitment which the ARD held out to the people for a democratic struggle in December 2000, when the alliance gave its basic agenda which included revival of undiluted democracy in the country and restoration of the 1973 Constitution as it stood in October 1999.

The charter, Mr Gilani said, also provided for the return of the exiled political leaders before the next general elections. He said that if the need be, the ARD would move courts for a safe return of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and required the judges, who had not taken oath under the PCO, to hear their petitions.

He said the ARD committee would mobilise lawyers who played active role in all democratic movements in the past to shoulder their responsibility for establishing a genuine democracy in the country. For this, the committee would organise lawyers’ conventions at the federal and provincial capitals, the first of which would be held in Lahore, he said.

Mr Gilani said the ARD committee adopted resolutions which demanded the release of all political prisoners, including Javed Hashmi, and that the National Accountability Bureau be dispensed with, alleging the bureau had only served as an instrument to victimise opposition leaders. Another resolution demanded that all special courts, particularly those established under the NAB law and the Anti-Terrorism Act, be disbanded and cases coming under their purview be proceeded in ordinary courts established under the 1973 Constitution.

The resolution said special court under special laws were a mockery of justice as they were established to undermine the judiciary.

Yet another resolution demanded that the exiled leadership should be allowed to return to play role in putting the country on the road to a ‘genuine democratic order’.