ISLAMABAD, April 12: The stage is set for another day of protests outside the Supreme Court building here on Friday when 'suspended' Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry will appear before the Supreme Judicial Council for the fourth hearing in the reference filed by President Pervez Musharraf.
Political parties and civil society organisations will gather outside the Supreme Court building to hold a demonstration planned by the lawyers’ associations to condemn `an assault against the independence of the judiciary’.
"This time our protest will be more effective, though peaceful," the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Munir A. Malik, said after chairing a meeting of the association.
The vice-chairperson of PBC, Ali Ahmed Kurd, appealed to the lawyers to observe a complete strike on Friday.
Heavy contingents of the Rangers and police have been deployed at all points of entry into Islamabad and approaches to the Supreme Court building will remain closed to traffic.
Only lawyers and journalists will be allowed to go to the court.
Before moving any further, it is likely that the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) will put to an end the debate on the holding of the proceedings in camera or in the open by giving a verdict.
At the last hearing, Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas had reserved his judgment on the demand of the suspended chief justice not to hold proceedings in camera.
The council will then move on by taking up thorny issues like the composition of the SJC.
Soon after appearing for the first time before the council, the suspended chief justice had raised preliminary legal objections by questioning the presence of the Lahore High Court chief justice in the council on the grounds that more than one reference of misconduct was pending against him before the SJC.
He had also said the high court chief justice had developed differences with him as he (Justice Iftikhar) had refused to consider names of advocates recommended by the former for elevation as judge of the high court.
Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar was also facing a reference before the SJC regarding alleged misappropriation in the Shah Latif Bhitai University, Khairpur, Justice Iftikhar alleged.
A number of lawyers recalled that the composition of the SJC had always been challenged in the past to ‘pressure the council into bringing in more amenable members’. However, in all previous cases such efforts by the defence lawyers failed.
It is not clear whether the panel of defence lawyers would invite the attention of the council to petitions pending before the Supreme Court challenging its composition.
