KARACHI, July 21: Various associations of lawyers on Saturday announced that they would continue their movement for the restoration of the 1973 constitution and the establishment of a real democracy in the country.

A general body meeting of the Karachi Bar Association was held in the Shuhda-i-Punjab Hall which was largely attended by members of the association.

Pakistan Bar Council member Mohammad Yaseen Azad, Sindh Bar Council members Zia Ahmed Awan, Salahuddin Khan Gandapur, Mustafa Lakhani, Supreme Court Bar Association Vice President Khwaja Naveed, KBA President Iftikhar Javaid Qazi and General-Secretary Naeem Qureshi and Pakistan Bar Council member Mohammad Yaseen Azad alleged that President Pervez Musharraf was a security risk. They said he should resign forthwith as president because the nation was not ready to see their future president in army uniform.

They urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of Musharraf’s statements and not allow to him get himself elected in uniform. They alleged that the military rulers were responsible for all crises in the country.

The KBA president, who is also a member of the Sindh Bar Council, Iftikhar Javaid Qazi, said the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was the first step towards their success, but the main problems for liberating the judiciary were yet to be solved.

He said the issues to be taken up were about the appointment of judges, implementation of the courts’ orders, financial matters and disposal of the cases in the courts, saying that the lawyers would also start monitoring activities of the judges and their unnecessarily mingling with members of the executive would be opposed.

The lawyers, he said, would take all possible steps to provide easy justice to the people. He expressed his reservations about the Access to Justice Programme of the government and asked for concentration on the actual problems being faced by the lawyers, judges and litigants.

Supreme Court Bar Association Vice President Khwaja Naveed said July 20 would be celebrated every year as a ‘yaum-i-tashakkur’, or the day of gratitude, and lawyers would not appear in the courts but hold seminars on the independence of the judiciary. He said the day gave a message that the role of the military general in politics would come to an end.

Sindh Bar Council member Zia Ahmed Awan, appreciating the lawyers’ efforts, said that the filing of the reference was unconstitutional which not only created problems for the lawyers and the litigants but also led to curbs on the media and killing and injuring of innocent lawyers and activists of various organisations.

SBC member Salahuddin Khan Gandapur said the military rulers had made the public hostage and asked for maintaining unity to get rid of the dictators and restore the 1973 constitution.

He said the filing of such references was tantamount to sedition and asked for punishment under Article 6 of the constitution for those who might repeat the mistakes in future.