June 22, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 21: As representatives of various bars expressed unhappiness on Saturday over the handling of the June 13 long march, members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) reposed their confidence in Aitzaz Ahsan’s leadership.

“Barrister Ahsan is a ‘commander’ who is leading the lawyers’ struggle very ably … and his decision to close the event without staging a sit-in was right,” SCBA secretary Chaudhry Mohammad Amin Javed told reporters after a meeting of the association’s executive committee.

The committee, he said, had adopted a resolution, endorsing Mr Ahsan’s decision to conclude the march, adding that the ‘real purpose’ of the long march was to motivate the entire country, which was ‘achieved’.“The long march should be construed as a second referendum after the Feb 18 elections, showing the people’s desire to quickly restore the pre-emergency judiciary.”

DIFFERENCES: Elsewhere, lawyers took a different stance, belying the association secretary’s assertions who insisted that there was no division among the lawyers.

Venting their anger, chairman of the executive committee of AJK Bar Council Sher Zaman and and vice-chairman Mohammad Ibrahim Zia, vice-chairman of the Sindh Bar Council Manzoor Leghari, chairman of the executive committee Frontier Bar Council and vice-president of the SCBA Saeed Akhtar, vice-chairman of the Frontier Bar Council Qazi Mohammad Naeem, member of the Sindh Bar Council A. Haleem and vice-chairman of the Punjab Bar Council Aslam Sindhu warned their leadership not to allow again any political party to hijack the lawyers’ platform to further its own cause.

They were apparently pointing at the presence of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and leaders of other parties who were at the centre stage during the long march.

Instead of the lawyers following politicians, it should be the other way around, they said.

Meanwhile, Aitzaz Ahsan again justified his action and said the SCBA had ‘no authority’ to ask the long march participants to stage a sit-in against the delay in reinstating the deposed judges. “None of the bodies, including the SCBA, PBC, or the long march implementation committee or the All Pakistan Lawyers’ Representative Conference had ever favoured a sit-in,” Barrister Ahsan said.

But in the same breath Barrister Ahsan warned the government to ‘honour the people’s sentiments’ and avoid a similar situation when a bigger protest march would be led by deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other sacked judges.