March 18, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1429

MUZAFFARGARH, March 17: Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad (retired) has said that the moment National Assembly resolution was passed for the restoration of judges deposed under the Nov 3, 2007 Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry would assume his responsibilities and the cases of PCO judges would be dealt with accordingly.

Addressing the members of District Bar Association (DBA) here on Monday, Justice Wajih, a former Supreme Court judge, who refused to succumb to the allegiance of Jan 2000 edition of the PCO, urged the upcoming government to immediately restore the judges so that lawyers could attend to their practice being affected for the past one year.

Justice Wajih, who also contested the Oct 6, 2007, presidential elections against chief of army staff General Pervez Musharraf, as he then was, said that lawyers’ community had worked hard for the establishment of rule of law, supremacy of the Constitution and independence of the judiciary for the past several months continuously and no political party even could keep its struggle alive for such a considerable long time.

He said the lawyers’ economic hardships should now come to an end and this was only possible if the government restored judges as soon as possible.

He warned the upcoming government that if it did not restore the judges deposed under the Nov 3 version of the PCO, lawyers would continue their struggle, unabatedly.

He said that the ‘frightened’ administration did not allow him to address Okara DBA just two days ago.

Muzaffargarh DBA president Zubaidul Islam Sherwani said that Justice Wajih was made presidential candidate on the demand of lawyers of his bar.

Sherwani said that he had demanded that Justice Wajih should be a presidential candidate during a Punjab Bar Council meeting on June 2, 2007. Justice Wajih smiled and nodded the fact reproduced by the DBA president.

Earlier, Justice Wajih addressed a seminar titled ‘Political murder and its causes’ arranged by Awaz Foundation at a local hotel in Multan on Sunday night.

Later, talking to reporters after the seminar, he said that he was surprised when Asif Zardari did not allow Benazir Bhutto’s autopsy.

He said that Zardari was an educated man but he should have allowed the autopsy of his wife and former prime minister so that causes of her murder could have been ascertained.