LAHORE, Jan 21: Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said here on Saturday that justice to all was a challenge which the superior judiciary was trying to ensure.

“No individual or a nation can attain the optimum level of potential if political and socio-economic justice, without taking into consideration cast, creed and colour, is denied,”, Justice Chaudhry said while speaking at a reception hosted by the Supreme Court Bar Association.

The CJ said that human history was replete with examples that nations decayed with denial of justice. He said that justice for all was a Herculean task that Supreme Court had resolved for itself to accomplish this mission for the people to alleviate their sufferings.

He welcomed the spirit of cooperation which the SCBA had extended with the spirit that the superior judiciary should rise to the expectation of the people and in defending the constitution and protecting the rights of the citizens.

SCBA president Malik Mohammad Qayyum said in his address of welcome that the reception symbolized the desire of the bar to strengthen the judiciary as to ensure that political and socio-economic rights of the people were protected and the constitution was not violated by the powerful ruling classes.

He said the bench-bar relations had, over the past few years, so disintegrated as to weaken both the partners responsible for the administration of justice. But the SCBA took upon itself to lend necessary support to the bench with the purpose of restoring the lost confidence and the image of the judiciary which was vital.

Malik Qayyum said the bar would stand by the judiciary in the onerous task of protecting the fundamental rights of the people and upholding rule of law. He hoped that the judiciary would assert itself in restoring the true spirit of the constitution which had badly been hampered by one amendment after the other, particularly the 17th Amendment which had offended the lawyers community.

He also mentioned cases of political victmization, particularly the imprisonment of Javed Hashmi and Yusuf Raza Gilani, besides the exile of the popular leadership and hoped that the judiciary would also address to the political problem and redress the grievances of the people. He also referred to the situation in Balochistan and the Northern Areas and sought a judicial inquiry of the issues of vital national interest.

The reception was attended among others by Federal Shariat Court Chief Justice Ejaz Yusuf, Lahore High Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry, judges of the Supreme Court and the LHC and a large number of lawyers.