PESHAWAR, May 21: A group of lawyers announced on Wednesday that they would boycott the oath-taking ceremony of the cabinet of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association in protest against invitation to the judges who had accepted lengthening of their tenure by virtue of the Legal Framework Order.

Speaking at a press conference, Pakistan Bar Council member and former PHCBA president Qazi Mohammad Anwar said the cabinet had invited the PHC chief justice as the chief guest to administer oath in violation of the constitution.

The ceremony is due to be held on May 24.

He said that according to the bar’s constitution, the most senior member of PHCBA could administer oath to the cabinet as the chief guest.

He said his group had filed a requisition signed by 51 PHCBA members for convening a meeting to persuade the cabinet members not to invite those judges who had been given extension under the LFO, but the meeting was not convened by the association’s president.

Flanked by Mohammad Khurshid Khan of the People’s Lawyers Forum and District Bar Association President Wakeel Zaman Khattak, Qazi Anwer urged the judges not to divide the lawyers and requested them not to attend the ceremony.  

Qazi Anwer, a former senator who lost the recent election of the PHCBA to Safeerullah advocate, said he and his colleagues would continue their movement against the LFO. He said the lawyers across the country were united against the LFO.

He said an individual had no authority to amend the Constitution and only parliament could do so with a two-thirds majority.

He said the Supreme Court Bar Association and the PBC had held conventions against the LFO in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.  

Retired judges participated in the conventions and opposed the LFO, he said.

He said the PHCBA president had promised in a meeting of the Joint Action Committee in Islamabad that he would not invite the judges who had been given extension under the LFO.

He said that even if the opposition reached a deal with the government on the LFO issue, the lawyers would continue their movement.