April 05, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1429

FAISALABAD, April 4: Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad (retired) has said efforts of lawyers will not yield any result if the judges, who took oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), will continue to hold offices in future.

Addressing the District Bar Association members on Friday, he said rumours were rife that the government was to restrict tenure of the deposed chief justice of Pakistan. The legal fraternity would, however, oppose such sort of law, he said.

He claimed that deposed CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had been offered the governorship of Balochistan and top slot of the International Court of Justice for budging from his position for the restoration of the judiciary. Such offers would not lure Justice Chaudhry who would continue his struggle to achieve the goal, he said.

Justice Wajih asked the lawyers to stand united as “the war waged by them has entered a crucial stage”. He criticised defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar’s declaring President Pervez Musharraf a national asset.

Meanwhile, speaking at a book-launch ceremony at a local hotel, he reiterated that the judiciary’s restoration was the sole solution to all problems facing the country. “A powerful judiciary can take up the issues of Lal Masjid, missing persons and operation in Swat,” he claimed.

TOBA TEK SINGH: Justice Wajih, a former Sindh High Court chief justice, said here that the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged because he was the torch-bearer of democracy. “But now as his party had returned to power for the third time after his execution, his party’s minister was saying that Pervez Musharraf, the man who sent the judiciary packing and exterminated democracy, was inevitable for the country”.

He was talking to the DBA, media and civil society at a seminar in bar room, held under the auspices of the Liberal Forum Pakistan.

He stated that the lawyers had brought about “the black-coat-black-tie revolution” which had paved the way for anti-Musharraf parties to come into power. But it was a pity that conspiracies were being hatched to introduce a package for the restoration of judges.

If the judiciary issue lingered beyond next three weeks, Justice Wajih said, a grand long march of lawyers and public would make for Islamabad.