August 23, 2006	Wednesday	Rajab 27, 1427

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LAHORE, Aug 22: The Punjab Bar Council on Tuesday urged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to relinquish either of the two offices he was holding as present in violation of the 1973 constitution.

Speaking at a news conference, PBC’s acting vice-chairperson Mohammad Iqbal Mohal supported various letters written by a number of political people, calling on the president to relinquish the office of the chief executive.

He said that the council was also planning to send to parliament within one month a memorandum bearing the signatures of nearly 100,000 lawyers, writers, professionals, artists and intellectuals asking legislators to ensure that Gen Musharraf vacated the office of the chief executive.

Flanked by bar council’s other members, Mr Mohal said that Article 43 of the constitution clearly provided that the president should not hold any other office of profit or occupy any other position. This provision of the constitution, he said, barred Gen Musharraf from holding the office of the president.

As for the National Assembly enacting a law which allowed Gen Musharraf to remain in presidency while in uniform, he said the national legislature could not permit the Chief of the Army Staff to also hold the office of the president through a law which was subordinate to the constitution.

He said it was ironic that the national legislature which was the creation of the 1973 constitution had undermined its creator law in an unconstitutional manner, he added.

The PBC acting vice-chairperson said Article 41(7) of the constitution ordained that Gen Musharraf ‘shall’ relinquish the office of the chief executive in accordance with a Supreme Court judgment of May 12, 2000. He said the apex court had directed Gen Musharraf to leave the presidency within three years and his stay in the office had lapsed more than a year ago.

Mr Mohal requested Supreme Court Bar association president Malik Mohammad Qayyum that he should desist from pursuing a bar politics which was not consistent with the ‘collective wisdom’ of the lawyers community.