May 17, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1429

LAHORE, May 16: The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) which met here on Friday night could not finalise the date for a long march.

“We want to mobilize and organize lawyers before the long march. All these aspects, including the date for the march, would be deliberated upon in the lawyers convention today,” PBC vice chairman Said Rehman announced after the meeting.

The all Pakistan lawyers’ representative convention, being held at the LHCBA premises today (Saturday), would also unfold the schedule for the deposed judges’ addresses to different bar associations and bar councils, said ex-PBC vice chairman Rashid A. Rizvi at the end of the briefing.

To a question, Mr Said Rehman said it was wrong to assume that the lawyers might materialize the long march as a last measure. “The marches would be undertaken till the restoration of the judges to their pre-Nov 3 status,” he added.

PBC lawyers affiliated with the PPP say that the call for the march should be given as a last-ditch effort to restore the judges. “We have asked the PBC not to give the call straightaway because they could run out of options after making it happen,” PBC member Raja Shafqat Abbasi told Dawn.

To another question, Mr Rehman said the PBC felt that Supreme Court Bar Association president Ch Aitzaz Ahsan must decide on his own if he wanted to contest or boycott the by-poll. “The Supreme Court Bar Association can’t give a call for a long march on its own because it fell under the discipline of the Pakistan Bar Council,” he said.

Answering a question, Mr Rehman said the PBC did not recognize the judges who took oath under the Provisional Constitution Order.

The PBC members, who attended the meeting, included Rashid A Rzvi, Ch Ashraf Wahla, Mirza Aziz Akbar Baig, Mohammad Yasin Azad, Fazl-i-Haq Abbasi, Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, Qazi Mohammad Anwar, Hamid Khan, Mian Israrul Haq, Kazim Khan, Raja Shafqat Abbasi, Yousuf Leghari, Ali Ahmad Kurd, Ramzan Chaudhry, Pervez Inayat Malik and Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari.

Law Minister Farooq H Naek and Dr Khalid Ranjha, also the PBC members, did not attend the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Bar Council (PbBC) has adopted a resolution unanimously for the immediate restoration of the judges and urged PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to implement the Murree Declaration.

The inter-provincial coordination committee of the PbBC met here on Friday and condemned “conspiracies being hatched by the President’s House against reinstatement of the judges deposed on Nov 3”.

The meeting, presided over by M. Iqbal Mohal, also asked Zardari to tender an apology to the nation for not honouring his commitment to restore the judges in time agreed in the accord.

The meeting commended the PML-N for quitting the ministries against the delay and chided US official John Negroponte for making a statement against Nawaz Sharif. It said lawyers would boycott any deposed judge who accepted reinstatement without Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The PbBC also decried the US missile attack in Bajaur and demanded expulsion of the US diplomat on this count. The council also resolved to abide by all decisions of the Pakistan Bar Council.