LAHORE: Lawyers in the district courts continued their protest for a second day on Tuesday against a new mechanism for the allocation of cases as leaders of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), the Punjab Bar Council and the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) also came forward in their support.

The lawyers at the sessions court and civil courts observed a boycott and also kept the entrance gates locked and did not let police personnel and litigants enter the courts’ premises.

District and Sessions Judge Habibullah Amir issued a notification regarding the transfer of cases pending before civil courts at Aiwan-i-Adl to respective tehsils/sub-divisions the plaintiffs concerned belonged to.

Speaking at a press conference, PBC vice-chairman Hafeezur Rehman Chaudhry said the division of the cases would promote corruption in the justice system. He said lawyers would face immense travelling issues to appear in courts situated in different parts of the city.

He demanded the withdrawal of the notification issued by the sessions judge.

LHCBA President Maqsood Ahmad Buttar, and Lahore Bar Association president Rao Sami also spoke, criticising the sessions judge for taking a unilateral decision of transferring cases on the basis of tehsil and sub-division levels.

They said the decision would enhance problems for the lawyers and the litigants instead of facilitating them. They said the bar and bench could not survive without the cooperation of each other.

The bar’s leaders said the lawyers did not want confrontation with the judiciary but an amicable solution to the dispute.

They vowed to continue the protest till the withdrawal of the notification.

The lawyers also demanded the deletion of section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 from the FIR registered against a lawyer involved in ransacking the copy branch of the Lahore High Court.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022