November 23, 2007	Friday	Ziqa’ad 12, 1428

PESHAWAR, Nov 22: A deposed judge of the Peshawar High Court said on Thursday that proclamation of the state of emergency and the promulgation of the Provisional Constitution Order amounted to imposition of martial law in the country.

“This is martial law for all practical purposes. Gen Musharraf gave it the name of ‘emergency’ in order to hoodwink the people and show that he had not committed treason,” Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai said.

Gen Musharraf was liable to be punished for committing ‘treason’, he added. “Gen Musharraf has violated the oath he had taken under Article 244 of the Constitution in which he had sworn to uphold the Constitution,” he said, adding that breaking an oath was a crime.

He urged the civil society and the political parties to come forward and join the lawyers’ movement. “Lawyers and the judiciary have played their role and now it is the turn of civil society groups and political parties.”

Addressing a lawyers’ convention jointly organised by Peshawar high court bar and Peshawar district bar associations on the premises of the high court, he said: “On March 9 only Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry had said ‘no’ to the military ruler, but after the continuous struggle of the legal fraternity 55 judges stood against the dictator on Nov 3.”

Earlier, Justice Shahjehan was given a warm welcome by lawyers. The atmosphere reverberated with slogans of “Go Musharraf Go” and “Long Live Justice Shahjehan Khan.”

Rose petals were showered on him. A warm welcome was also accorded to PHCBA president Abdul Lateef Afridi, released from house arrest, and secretary-general Ishtiaq Ibrahim, released from the Peshawar Central Prison.

Advocate Feroza Rubab, a lawyer who is in the forefront of the movement in Punjab, also attended the convention.

The convention resolved to support a call by the All Pakistan Democratic Movement to observe a ‘black day’ and a strike in the courts on Friday.

It said lawyers would start boycotting courts from Monday if the arrested lawyers were not released.

Justice Shahjehan, who was the senior-most judge of the high court after Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan, said the unity displayed by the legal fraternity was unprecedented in Pakistan’s history. “The number of imprisoned lawyers and those who were brutally tortured after Nov 3 is even more than those imprisoned during the Pakistan movement,” he claimed.

Referring to Gen Musharraf’s statement that he preferred to save the country over saving the Constitution, Justice Shahjehan said the Constitution was the basic document of the country.

“The 1973 Constitution was adopted with consensus by all major political parties and it is the document which has been keeping the inhabitants of the four provinces united despite different cultures and languages.”

He pointed out that in the constitutions of 1956 and 1962 there was no provision for checking the abrogation of the Constitution, but Article 6 was incorporated in the 1973 Constitution to check military takeovers.

Raising a copy of the Constitution, he said the document had prescribed the limits for the army and those overstepping the limits were deemed to have committed treason.

He paid tribute to lawyers, saying they had been in constant struggle since March 9.

Abdul Lateef Afridi, Barrister Bacha, Qazi Mohammad Anwer, secretary-general of the High Court Bar Association, Abbottabad bench, Jawed Qureshi, and ANP leader Arbab Ayub Jan also spoke on the occasion.

Ms Musarrat Hilali, who was the moderator of the convention, paid tribute to Imran Khan for wholeheartedly participating in the lawyers’ movement and called upon other political parties to focus on the single-point agenda of getting rid of Gen Musharraf and restoring the independence of the judiciary.

Barrister Bacha said the provinces’ only link with Pakistan was through the Constitution and when there was no Constitution they had no link with the country.