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July 25, 2008
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Friday
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Rajab 21, 1429
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Lawyers vow to fight till last
By Our Reporter
LAHORE, July 24: Lawyers on Thursday rallied on The Mall and vowed not to flinch till the deposed judges were restored to their November 2 status.
The members of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) and the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) joined each other in front of the main gate of the Lahore High Court, and were accompanied by workers of political parties, representatives of NGOs and activists on their way to their traditional protest point – Charing Cross.
They chanted slogans against the judges, who took an oath under the Provisional Constitution Order after the imposition of emergency on November 3, while walking past the judges' gate of the high court. Around two-dozen Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf activists criticised PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari ‘for not restoring the judges’.
The PML-N activists chanted slogans against President Gen Pervez Musharraf while the Jamaat-i-Islami workers kept shouting “fight to continue till the restoration of the judges”.
The protesters walked to Charing Cross, holding aloft placards, pictures of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and national flags.
Despite joint call of the Pakistan Bar Council, SCBA and LHCBA to lawyers for observing complete boycott of the courts of the ‘PCO judges’, a majority of lawyers appeared in the courts. However, they joined hunger strike camps and wore black armbands in protest against delay in the fulfillment of promises of judges’ restoration.
LHCBA President Anwar Kamal, Secretary Rana Asad Ullah, Member Pakistan Bar Council Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari, Ahmed Awais, and other lawyers joined the hunger strike camp.
Earlier, addressing the LHCBA general house, deposed senior judge of the Lahore High Court Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif said PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari was not restoring the deposed judges because he feared his cases would be reopened, besides the one pertaining to the qualification of President Musharraf.
He said Asif Ali Zardari had still not found a guarantor who could assure him that deposed judges would not do any harm to him after they got restored.
He said the sitting government could not control the spiraling prices and runaway lawlessness in the country because PPP leadership, including Asif Ali Zardari, did not respect their mandate. He said the country was facing judicial and economic problems only because politicians forgot their promises.
He said the PPP leadership was not ready to accept the fact that the masses gave mandate to it on February 18 for restoration of the independent Judiciary and not because of their manifesto.
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