ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Amanullah Kanrani has accused President Dr Arif Alvi, Prime Minister Imran Khan and the cabinet members of violating their oath of office.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, Mr Kanrani said the second letter wrote by Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court to the president had established that the judge, who was facing a reference before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), had not received the copy of the reference.

He said the cabinet members were openly discussing the contents of the reference and this clearly proved that top functionaries of the government had violated their oath of office. Against this backdrop, he added, the SCBA would consider moving a petition or a case at an appropriate forum after Eid against the top functionaries of the government for allegedly violating their oath.

Mr Kanrani recalled that the reference had been filed against Justice Isa after President Alvi accorded his approval, but his oath demanded that no government secret should come into public.

In his first letter to the president, Justice Isa had stated that selective leaks to the media of the reference amounted to his character assassination, thus jeopardising his right to due process and fair trial. He had requested the president to let him know whether this was correct that the reference had been filed against him under Article 209 of the Constitution in the SJC.

On Monday, Justice Isa had written another letter expressing the confidence that the president would do everything in his power to ensure that all obey the Constitution and also fearing that the sinister move would undermine the independence of the judiciary.

Mr Kanrani said the entire SCBA leadership and representatives of other bar councils and associations would be present when the SJC would take up the reference against Justice Isa on June 14. He said the SJC hearing was in-camera, but since the reference had already become talk of the town, it was no more a secret inquiry.

He said the lawyers’ bodies would not encourage any movement on roads rather remain present inside the court premises in support of Justice Isa. He repeated the lawyers’ demand that either the government withdrew the reference before its formal hearing on June 14 or the SJC dropped the charges against what he called the honest judge.

The SCBA chief has already warned that the lawyers will burn the reference inside the Courtroom No 1 if the SJC commences the proceedings against Justice Qazi on June 14.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2019