INDIA instituted proceedings against Pakistan at the International Court of Justice at The Hague after a military court in Pakistan awarded death sentence to an Indian national, Kulbushan Jadhav, last month on a charge of espionage.

At the court hearing on Monday one could not help notice that the lead agent representing India, former Solicitor General Harish Salve, is an Indian national while Khawar Qureshi, QC, the agent representing Pakistan, is a British barrister of Pakistani descent.

It is sad to note that in a country of 189 million of whom, according to the 2016 Supreme Court Bar Association directory, 2,977 are Supreme Court enrolled lawyers, not one, could be trusted to represent Pakistan.

Ironically, the only Asian lawyer to preside over the International Court of Justice was Pakistan’s Sir Zafrulla Khan. The Supreme Court Bar still has many eminent lawyers on its rolls. The Pakistan Bar Council should look into the reasons which led to the hiring of a British national to represent Pakistan.

Hussain Idris
Karachi

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ON September 21, 1999, Pakistan filed an application at the International Court of Justice against India regarding a dispute relating to the destruction on August 10, 1999, of a Pakistan Navy aircraft.

Lest we forget, it was the ICJ which turned down the application, declaring that the court did not have enough ruling to solve disputes related to India and Pakistan.

Scores of Pakistani families have lost their loved ones in the border attacks by India. The world must ask India now on what grounds it has approached the ICJ on the Kulbhushan Jadhav case.

Sajjad Ahmed
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2017