April 16, 2007	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, April 15: The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) has urged all political parties and professional organisations, including the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Pakistan Medical Association, Pakistan Medical Council, Pakistan Engineering Council, and associations of chartered accountants and architects, to support the lawyers’ struggle for judiciary’s independence.

The call was given at a PBC meeting held here on Sunday under the council’s vice-chairman, Ali Ahmed Kurd.

Reiterating its demand for immediate withdrawal of the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and his reinstatement with dignity and honour, the Bar council urged all sections of the civil society, including women, students and workers, to join hands with lawyers in their struggle for the rule of law and defence of the Constitution.

The meeting also constituted a coordination committee comprising leaders of the PBC, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), provincial bar councils, high court bar associations and principal district Bar associations in the federal and provincial capitals provide guidance to lawyers’ movement.

The PBC called upon all representative bodies of lawyers to follow the call of central bodies of lawyers including PBC and SCBA for strike, boycott, and other activities in relation to the ongoing movement.

In a resolution unanimously adopted at the meeting, the council observed that no reference could be filed against the Chief Justice of Pakistan under Article 209 of the Constitution. The PBC said that the so-called presidential reference against the Chief Justice was mala fide and had no legal or constitutional value.

The council demanded that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should quit the offices of the president and chief of army staff.

The PBC said it had no confidence in two members of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) -- Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry. “The SJC would not be properly constituted if they or any of them sit on the apex judicial body,” they said.

The PBC also said it might file a petition before the Supreme Court challenging the maintainability of the reference and the composition of the Supreme Judicial Council. The vice-chairman was authorised to file the petition.

The PBC expressed displeasure over Dr Khalid Ranjha’s move to accept a brief of the referring authority in violation of a PBC resolution that had been endorsed by other lawyers’ bodies at the national level, pointing out that being a member of the PBC, he was bound by its resolutions. The meeting also criticised the FIR lodged by Dr Khalid Ranjha against lawyers.

The PBC expressed concern over the fact that the real culprits involved in manhandling the Chief Justice, putting him and his family members under house arrest, disconnecting his phones and cable lines, holding him incommunicado and intruding upon the privacy of his home had been deliberately not identified and brought to book. Meanwhile, a joint meeting of the office-bearers of the PBC, SCBA, executive committees of all provincial bar councils and presidents of all high court and district Bar associations decided that lawyers throughout the country would continue their struggle for independence of judiciary and their protest against the filing of reference.

It decided that lawyers would continue to observe a one-hour strike daily and its timings would be determined by respective bar associations.

Court proceedings would be completely boycotted on days of the reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan and processions and rallies would be organised by lawyers in all bar associations and before the Supreme Court building in Islamabad.