July 20, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 16, 1429

LAHORE, July 19: An all Pakistan lawyers’ representative conference set on Saturday August 14 as deadline for the coalition government to restore the deposed judges.

“If it fails, the … legal fraternity will intensify its … protest campaign all over the country and step up its boycott of courts, block courtrooms more vigorously, organise countrywide marches to Islamabad, court arrests and resort to civil disobedience,” Lahore High Court Bar Association president Anwar Kamal read out the resolution passed in the conference.

It was decided that the national co-ordination council would meet on Aug 15 on the premises of the Rawalpindi High Court Bar Association’s office to give a concrete shape to these decisions, Mr Kamal said.

Two key suggestions —locking courtrooms and disrupting traffic across the country — were also left to be decided by the council.

The conference was attended by lawyers’ representatives from across the country, including president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Aitzaz Ahsan, vice-chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council Saidur Rehman, chairman of the PBC executive committee Rasheed A. Rizvi and members of the PBC Ali Ahmad Kurd, Hamid Khan.

Reading out other resolutions adopted by the convention, Mr Kamal said the legal fraternity had also expressed concern over the growing trend of Talibanisation. The resolution asked the government to check the role of its agencies and save the country from plunging into a civil war.

Another resolution called for immediate end to the military operation in Balochistan and releasing all ‘missing persons’.

The convention unanimously rejected the constitutional package, envisaging changes in the appointment, tenure and the suo motu powers of the superior judiciary.

Several PBC members, who did not attend the conference, insisted that the constitutional package was essential to restoring the pre-Nov 3 judiciary.Differences among the legal community were also evident from a resolution moved by PPP-backed PBC members against Aitzaz Ahsan for criticising the council’s actions.

Senator Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, Ramzan Chaudhry, Raja Shafqat Abbasi, Ashraf Wahla, Kazim Khan and Mirza Aziz Akbar Baig had sent the resolution for considering action against Mr Ahsan on July 26.

However, PBC member Hamid Khan denied any rift within ranks of the council and said it would endorse with majority the convention’s decision in its upcoming meeting.

The conference also praised the judges who, despite government’s offers for re-appointment, stood by their oaths to protect constitutionalism. Expressing dismay over government attitude, the participants said it had let down the people by not reinstating the judges.

Lawyers observed that the time had come for all political parties in the ruling coalition to fulfil their promises to restore the judiciary. “Failure to address this issue is impeding the solution of grave economic crisis that is imperilling poor people’s lives.”

After the convention, which lasted more than eight hours, the lawyers chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf and his supporters. They held aloft pictures of the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and vowed to keep the movement alive till the pre-Nov 3 judiciary was restored.