LAHORE, Oct 27: The Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) has urged its members across the Punjab to observe a ‘black day’ on Wednesday (tomorrow) to protest against the demolition of lawyers’ chambers on Fane Road.

A decision to this effect was taken at a LHCBA meeting, presided over by its president Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari on Monday.

The meeting urged the lawyers to boycott courts and adopt resolutions against ‘this judicial terrorism’.

Later, lawyers paraded in the court premises and protested outside the chamber of the chief justice.

They also walked up to the Supreme Court building where they held a demonstration against the Legal Framework Order (LFO), the enhancement of judges retirement age and the recent order of the apex court for releasing cause lists on a daily basis.

Pakistan Bar Council’s executive committee chairperson Kazim Khan, LHCBA president Hafiz Abdur Rahman Ansari and Supreme Court Bar Association’s former president Hamid Khan were among the participants besides a number of lawyers affected by the demolition.

Later, the affected lawyers said at a news conference that 47 chambers were demolished with bulldozers on Oct 25. The demolition squad did not allow them even to collect their law books and case files. The destruction of office furniture, air-conditioners and room coolers has resulted in huge financial loss to them.

Former federal minister Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf, who was among the affected lawyers, said the action was unlawful and amounted to degrading the superior judiciary and the legal profession because a petition pre-empting such an action was already pending before the Supreme Court.

The chief justice of Pakistan had assured a lawyers’ delegation that no such action would be taken without taking them into confidence.

According to Chaudhry Ashraf, the evacuation issue could have been resolved. The lawyers were prepared to vacate the place if an earlier decision, concluded by justices Karamat Nazir Bhandari and Khalil Ramday, now judges of the Supreme Court, of earmarking three of 17 kanals for affected lawyers establishments, was implemented.

He said that many of the around 200 lawyers who used the chambers were allotees of the Evacuee Property Trust Board on payment of legal dues.

Chaudhry Ashraf said the controversy about the vacation of the land dated back to 1975-76 when the Lahore High Court purchased it from the EPTB. The issue had never assumed so alarming a proportion as it did after the issuance of ejectment notices in March this year.

LHCBA president Hafiz Abdur Rahman Ansari said the ‘intimidation’ of lawyers had been stepped up following their democratic struggle which was also directed to saving the institution of judiciary.

He was of the view that the Lahore High Court chief justice should be removed to save the situation from further deterioration.