March 07, 2008	Friday	Safar 28, 1429

KARACHI, March 6: Legal proceedings remained suspended at the City Courts and District Courts of Malir on Thursday as the lawyers stayed away from court proceedings in response to a strike call given by the Pakistan Bar Council to protest against the ousting of the judges, amendments in the constitution and in the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act, 1973.

Many undertrial prisoners were brought to the City Courts from different prisons of the city, but their cases could not be heard due to the strike and were taken back to their respective prisons without being produced in court. However, the judges remained in their chambers.

Most of the stationery shops and cabins on the City Courts premises remained closed. Stamp vendors did open their shops, but later shuttered them because of a lack of business. However, the canteens situated on the court premises remained open.

The lawyers condemned the publication of blasphemous sketches by various Danish newspapers and demanded that the government break diplomatic relations with Denmark.

Aitzaz criticized

The protesting lawyers criticised SCBA chief Aitzaz Ahsan’s remarks about the May 12 mayhem and said the lawyers and people of Karachi could never forget that tragic incident.

The demands were moved at a general-body meeting of the Karachi Bar Association, held in the Shuhada-i-Punjab Hall of the City Courts.

Karachi Bar Association president Mahmoodul Hasan said foreign powers wanted President Musharraf to remain in power for their own interests, but “We will not allow such countries, particularly the US, to interfere in our internal matters.”

He said the ongoing struggle of the lawyers would continue till the restoration of the pre-PCO judiciary and warned the political parties not to create hurdles in the way of reinstatement of the deposed judges.

KBA secretary-general Naeem Qureshi urged the Pakistan People’s Party to restore the judiciary to its Nov 2 position. They claimed that PPP’s assassinated chairperson Benazir Bhutto had assured the lawyers in her speech outside the residence of the deposed chief justice that she would reinstate the ousted judges, and the party must take these remarks as her will.

Later, the lawyers took out a procession from the KBA office and staged a sit-in on M. A. Jinnah Road and blocked traffic for some time and later they dispersed peacefully. They chanted anti-Musharraf and pro-judiciary slogans during the rally.

Meanwhile, Malir Bar Association president Zahoor Hussain Mehar told Dawn that a complete boycott of courts was observed at the Malir bar on Thursday and the lawyers did not attend court proceedings.