KARACHI: A group of lawyers has opposed a countrywide strike called by the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) in protest against filing of references against Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court and Justice Karim Khan Agha of the Sindh High Court.

Speaking at a news conference at the Karachi Press Club on Monday, Ihtisham Advocate, a member of the Sindh High Court Bar Association’s executive committee, and Wahab Baloch, a former SHBCA vice president, along with some other lawyers, mostly former office-bearers of Karachi, Malir and Sindh High Court bar associations, said that a Sindh lawyers’ action committee had been formed for what they claimed proper representation of the lawyers of the province and added that nobody was above the law and accountability should be across the board including the judges.

They urged the Supreme Judicial Council to hear the references as required under Article 209 and decide them in accordance with the law.

They said that the demand for withdrawal of the references by the PBC meant that it had little confidence in the judicial system, maintaining that the strike call for June 14 was unjustified as it was given even before the proceedings were started.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2019