ISLAMABAD: Two premier bodies representing lawyers on Thursday demanded that the government immediately withdraw the presidential reference it filed against Supreme Court judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa.

In a one-page statement issued in Urdu on the letterhead of the Sup­reme Court Bar Association (SCBA), its president Syed Qalb-e-Hassan and vice chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) Abid Saqi asked the government to withdraw the reference as soon as possible.

“The wrong intentions that were the driving force behind the presidential reference against the sitting judge have already come to the fore and are now known to the people of Pakistan at large,” the statement said.

It also alleged that the reference was aimed only at dividing the top judiciary, but after an unsuccessful attempt to do so the government was now trying to drive a wedge between lawyers.

“The recent fiasco that culminated in the resignation of former attorney general Anwar Mansoor as well as disinclination on the part of newly appointed attorney general, Barrister Khalid Jawed Khan, to represent the federal government in the case is enough to make it clear that the mala fide intentions had been unearthed and, therefore, nothing was left for anybody to pursue in the reference,” read the joint statement.

Reference was meant to divide the top judiciary, says joint statement by SCBA and PBC

The presidential reference is pending before the Supreme Judicial Council, but the council’s proceedings have been put on hold because the Supreme Court is hearing a number of petitions seeking quashment of the case against Justice Isa.

The joint demand from the two bodies has come in the wake of the Feb 24 directive of a 10-judge bench (full court) of the Supreme Court to the federal government to engage a lawyer who would be fully committed to pursuing the case against Justice Isa.

The directive was given after Attorney General Khan had expressed his inability to represent the federal government in the case and objections had been raised by lawyers’ bodies against Law Minister Farogh Naseem’s willingness to appear on behalf of the government.

In its order the apex court had clarified that the lead counsel for the federal government would neither be the law minister nor the attorney general; therefore, the government should engage a fully committed and full-time lawyer for the purpose before March 30, the next day of hearing.

In case this is not possible, Additional Attorney General Chaudhry Aamir Rehman will plead the government’s case before the full court. However, the law minister will appear before the ten-judge bench because he has been impleaded by name in the case.

Syed Qalb-e-Hassan, while objecting to the minister’s willingness to argue in the case on behalf of the government, had pointed out that the latter’s practising certificate had been suspended in view of Rule 108-O of the Pakistan Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules, 1976.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2020