January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Jan 4: Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on Friday put off launching of a ‘judicial bus’, a symbolic protest devised by the legal fraternity for the restoration of pre-emergency judiciary, but gave a nod to continue ongoing boycott of superior courts by the lawyers until a final decision, expected at the end of this month, is reached.

“The action committee of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) in which the SCBA is also represented is meeting in Peshawar on January 13 to devise the future line of action,” SCBA Secretary Chaudhry Mohammad Amin Javed told the press after attending the executive committee meeting of the association. The bar’s vice- president, Advocate Saeed Akhtar Khan, presided over the meeting.

Till then we have deferred our decision to launch the judicial bus for the restoration of deposed judges of the superior courts, who either were not offered or had declined to take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) on November 3, 2007 when President Pervez Musharraf proclaimed emergency rule in the country.

Since the November 3 emergency, which was later lifted by President Musharraf on December 15, the legal fraternity is not attending proceedings in the Supreme Court and the four high courts to press demand to restore almost all the 60 judges who stand deposed under the PCO through a set of constitutional amendments, declaring the deposed judges as ‘ceased to hold their respective offices’.

About the prolonged detention of the association’s president, Aitzaz Ahsan, former president Tariq Mehmood and former PBC vice-chairman Ali Ahmed Kurd, the SCBA decided to approach the United Nations and the Islamabad-based foreign diplomats to urge them to exert their influence on the government for the release of the three noted lawyers.

Aitzaz Ahsan has the distinction of spearheading Pakistan’s first successful agitation of lawyers to have Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry reinstated when he was first removed by President Musharraf on March 9, 2007.

They are being kept under detention, he deplored, without any reason and therefore their continued incarceration was illegal. Recently the detention of Aitzaz Ahsan was extended by another month by the Punjab government.

Likewise a series of meetings will also be held in different bar associations upto the tehsil level to mount fresh momentum for the restoration of the 1973 Constitution, restoration of the pre-emergency judiciary and release of these lawyers.

However Chaudhry Amin made it clear that their detention would not be challenged before any court of law because the legal fraternity did not recognise PCO judges as real judges.

The SCBA meeting also deplored the December 27 tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi and accused the government of failing to protect the life and liberty of the citizens.