PESHAWAR, June 10: Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians chairperson Ms Benazir Bhutto has asked the lawyers’ fraternity to launch a movement to force the withdrawal of military from the presidency to the barracks.

In her message, which she sent on the occasion of the People’s Lawyers Forum, NWFP, convention on Saturday, she hailed the legal fraternity for opposing the dictatorial measures of the present rulers and said:”I recall the lawyers convention in Lahore rejecting the Legal Framework Order as a device to perpetuate General Pervez Musharraf in the self-assumed office of the president, which he has, like past military rulers, usurped through extra-constitutional means to promote his personal ends”.

The convention was organised at the Nishtar Hall, at which PLF convener Barrister Masood Kausar read out her message, hailing lawyers’ vanguard role in the historic struggle for the people’s fundamental rights including the rule of law, supremacy of parliament and independence of judiciary. She said the founder of the nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and first directly elected prime minister and saviour of Pakistan Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto belonged to this community.

Ms Bhutto said the process of constitution’s emasculation was initiated by the military dictatorship through the promulgation of the LFO in 2002. She said it was the collective responsibility of the political parties and the legal fraternity as well as the citizens to challenge this onslaught on the constitution.

While tearing the constitution to shreds, she observed, the military dictatorship had tried to wipe out alternative through the character assassination drive to discredit political parties by targeting their leaders. She said:”Political parties unite a nation, representing a people, spearheading a debate, formulating policies and serving the people.”

Ms Bhutto said the assets of political leaders were declared and published for public scrutiny every year.”I have asked Gen Musharraf and his family to declare their assets in accordance with the principle of transparency, but seven years after seizing power, the general is still reluctant to give an annual account of his assets since he seized power in coup d etat.