ABDUL Hafeez Pirzada’s death is a huge loss to the legal profession. The courts in Pakistan stand deprived of the valuable assistance of an able, courageous and competent lawyer. I have lost a friend.

Our first contact was in a Hyderabad case. This later developed into friendship.

His work in framing and piloting the 1973 Constitution would be remembered. I saw him working untiringly since I was then the constitutional advisor from the opposition.

His preparation, presentation and aggressively convincing manner in courts gave him success in many difficult cases which are among reported cases in law journals. This speaks volume of his achievement.

Once I met him in his office in Islamabad in 2008. He was preparing Pervez Musharraf’s defence against the possible threat of his impeachment. He looked tired. I asked Hafeez Pirzada: “You should one day decide to give up practice and pay attention to your health”. He said: “No Zafar, I would prefer to die with my boots on”.

Later he met me in the house of my son, Ali Zafar only a day or two before he left for London. He appeared rather pensive. After some time, he said: “I am thinking of giving up my practice” and he went on to say: “I have given much of my best life to the profession and assisted the courts. When arguing the case before the Chief Justice, I requested him to grant me general adjournment for a medical check up in London for which I have already obtained an appointment.

The Chief Justice gracefully granted me adjournment, saying: ‘Hafiz, you need rest’. But when on the basis of this adjournment, I requested a bench of the court to adjourn one of my cases, I was denied the request”. The angel of death seems to have read his mind and took away his practice as well as his life. He died with his boots on though disappointed. He deserves a reference in the Supreme Court for the services he rendered to the courts and country.
May Allah bless his soul and give him peace!

S. M. Zafar

Senior Advocate,

Supreme Court of Pakistan

(2)

THE death of Abdul Hafeez Pirzada brings back to mind some fleeting moments of his early political career when I was district magistrate of Karachi and later home secretary and chief secretary of Sindh . Since I kept no notes, my recollection is hazy. Any error, therefore, must be attributed to a failing memory.

Mr Pirzada was elected to the national Assembly from Karachi through elections which are still recognised as the fairest in the country’s dismal electoral experience. As district magistrate I never came under pressure to favour a particular party or candidate.

The administration remained neutral, no suggestions, much less pressure, came from above. The chief election commissioner, Justice Sattar of East Pakistan, once convinced that the local administration was neutral defended it in every forum. May his soul rest in peace.

To the credit of Hafiz Pirzada, Prof Ghafur Ahmad, Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani and many others, whose names do not readily come to mind, rose above temptation to blame the administration for their own weaknesses. Those were the finest moments of a united Pakistan in its dying moments. What soon followed is too familiar and disgraceful a story to be recounted here. The loss of East Pakistan also marked the loss of trust between politicians and civil servants. The gulf between the two has been widening since then.

Kunwar Idris

Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2015

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