September 10, 2007	Monday	Sha'aban 27, 1428

PESHAWAR, Sept 9: Bar associations in the province on Sunday resolved to besiege the NWFP Assembly building and not let any MPA to cast vote in the presidential election if Gen Pervez Musharraf remained a candidate.

They asked the Chief Election Commissioner to reject the nomination papers of Gen Musharraf who, they said, was not qualified under Article 63 and other provisions of the Constitution to contest the presidential election.

A meeting of the office-bearers of all bar associations in the province, except Chitral, was held here under the aegis of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association. PHCBA president Abdul Lateef Afridi presided over the meeting. It was attended by members of the NWFP Bar Council and presidents and general-secretaries of all district bar associations.

The meeting took various decisions regarding the second phase of lawyers’ movement launched across the country aimed at restoring ‘people’s government’.

The participants urged Gen Musharraf to quit and hand over power to the Senate chairman. They demanded formation of an impartial caretaker government and holding of free and transparent elections.

The meeting expressed concern over the law and order situation in the tribal areas and demanded an immediate withdrawal of troops from there. It suggested that political parties should be allowed to play their role in restoring peace in the tribal belt.

The speakers criticised Saudi prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz and Lebanese leader Saad Al-Hariri for holding a press conference in Islamabad and termed it a ‘direct attack’ on the sovereignty of Pakistan. “It was interference in the affairs of the country,” they added.

Through a resolution, the meeting condemned the reported move of the government to curtail the tenure of chief justice of superior courts to two-and-a-half years and warned that the lawyers’ community would not accept such move. It demanded that the government should announce that it would not take any step for restricting the independence of the judiciary.

The participants urged the government to increase the sanctioned strength of judges in the Peshawar High Court and induct seven more judges. They called for setting up circuit benches in Malakand and Bannu districts.

The meeting condemned the kidnapping of Younas Khan, former president of the Mardan Bar Association, in the Takhtbhai area on Friday and warned that if he was not recovered within 72 hours, lawyers would launch a movement for his recovery.

The bar associations demanded that salaries and incentives for judicial officers in subordinate judiciary should be increased.

The meeting decided to constitute committees to check misconduct of lawyers and to terminate the membership of lawyers found involved in any wrongdoing.

PHCBA president Lateef Afridi elaborated salient features of the second phase of the movement. He said that NWFP’s lawyers would fully participate in the movement on the call of the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association.

He said the lawyers would stage demonstrations on the days to be fixed for filing and scrutiny of nomination papers in the presidential election. He said Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan would be a consensus presidential candidate for the forthcoming elections of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

Mr Afridi said that initially there were 600 militants in the province, but now their number had risen to around 23,000. He said the government had adopted a silence over the problem due to which Talibanisation had been on the rise even in settled districts of the NWFP.