0
KARACHI, July 15: A lawyers’ seminar on Sunday called for the establishment of a supreme court in every province.
The seminar on ‘Independence of judiciary-justice for all’ was organised here at a local hotel by the Sindh United Lawyers Forum (SULF), lawyers’ wing of the Sindh United Party (SUP).
On the occasion, four resolutions were adopted demanding establishment of a supreme court in each province and a federal court at the centre to decide only inter-provincial and centre-province disputes.
This would ensure prompt and inexpensive justice to all and make it difficult for military rulers to obtain legal cover. Another resolution called for the appointment of superior court judges subject to confirmation by the Senate, which should henceforth be elected directly.
Other resolutions expressed concern over the judicial crisis, called for the withdrawal of the reference made against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, voiced full support for the lawyers’ movement, condemned the May 12 violence in Karachi and demanded inquiry into it.
Pakistan Resolution
The Sindh High Court Bar Association (SCHBA) president, Abrar Hasan, said that the 1940 Pakistan Resolution should have been duly reflected in the Constitution. Despite being a key founding document, it was completely ignored in the 1956 Constitution, which ensured inter-wing parity without autonomy and was only partially reflected in the 1973 Constitution.
The lengthy concurrent list, which should have been revised earlier, should be scrapped altogether so that all residuary subjects not enumerated in the federal legislative list revert to the provinces. Everything located within a maritime belt of 10km, he said, belonged to the coastal province and the federal government could not lay claim to any island or offshore oil within the belt.
Slogans in the name of Islam, Mr Hasan warned, only diverted the nation’s attention from the more urgent and pressing constitutional economic problems. All Islamic provisions and laws, including Hudood laws, had been made and enforced and it was time to turn to issues like agrarian reforms. Land reforms introduced in the 1960s and 1970s had not worked and that was one of the reasons behind the low literacy rate, which was the lowest in South Asia, he said adding that the lawyers’ movement was the only ray of hope in an otherwise dismal situation.
The SUP chief and former provincial assembly speaker, Syed Jalal Mahmood Shah, said that the legislature had remained hostage ever since the dissolution of the first constituent assembly by the then governor-general. In fact, the executive, rather the military component of it, had reigned supreme over the other organs of the state, including the judiciary, he added.
The judiciary’s role left a lot to be desired, he said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Sindh provincial assembly case in the late 1990s. It took him 15 days to ascertain the meaning of the ‘confusing order’, after which he called the assembly into session, which enacted a record number of bills introduced by private members, since there were no treasury or opposition benches.
‘Intrigues and conspiracies’
Syed Ghulam Shah said that in the country’s history intrigues and conspiracies had played a vicious role in thwarting the people’s aspirations. He warned that provincial autonomy and decentralisation were crucial for the independence of the judiciary.
Zain Shah said that past mistakes must be admitted to avoid their recurrence. The Supreme Court had been allowing military rulers to amend the Constitution.
SBC members Mustafa Lakhani and Mohammad Aqil and KBA secretary Naeem Qureshi warned that the lawyers’s movement would continue even after the restoration of the chief justice as it was aimed at securing an independent judiciary and would not be called off without achieving the objective.
The lawyers who addressed the seminar said that the movement was not confined to the reinstatement of the chief justice. They hoped that the Supreme Court judgment in the CJ’s case would usher in a new era of politico-legal justice in Pakistan. They said that their struggle was aimed at establishing civilian supremacy in the country’s governance.
Yasin Azad, Zain Shah, Abdul Wahab Baloch and Advocates Rochi Ram, Saadat Yar Khan and Naheed Afzal also spoke.
