ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has decided to mobilise public opinion against what it called the government plans to get General Pervez Musharraf re-elected as president by the present assemblies.

The decision was taken at the first meeting of the newly-elected SCBA after a re-polling was held under the supervision of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) to end a bitter row between two groups of lawyers.

Muneer A. Malik was elected president of the association and his group swept the polls for office-bearers and executive committee members.

Presided over by Mr Malik, the meeting adopted two resolutions. One of them authorised the president and the secretary, Zulfikar Ali Bokhari, to chalk out a strategy for holding protest meetings to block what it called a fraud against the Constitution and the nation. The protest strategy would be devised in consultation with other bar associations and councils in the country.

“The committee is deeply disturbed by recent reports that Gen Pervez Musharraf intends to get himself re-elected as president by the present assemblies,” the resolution said.

“Such an event would be a perpetuation of the existing illegality that emanates from the usurpation of the state power,” the resolution stated, resolving to mobilise public opinion to vociferously protest against the “nefarious designs of the ruling establishment”.

While reviewing the situation prevailing in the country, especially in Balochistan and Waziristan, the participants of the meeting strongly condemned use of force to quell the exercise of rights by people, guaranteed to them under the Constitution, different charters and covenants of the United Nations.

It backed the people of Balochistan in their struggle “to gain control of their own natural resources and their demands for greater provincial autonomy.”

It also resolved to make efforts for restoration of the 1973 Constitution as on October 12, 1999, and expressed its commitment to work in tandem with other bar associations and councils to wage a struggle for a just, egalitarian and equitable civil society.

Through the other resolution, the SCBA extended cooperation to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and other judges of the apex court in the challenging task of providing justice to all persons without fear or favour, upholding supremacy of the rule of law and stamping out corruption from the ranks of the judiciary.