KARACHI, May 3: The legal fraternity continued their boycott of court proceedings for the second consecutive day on Thursday in their prolonged campaign against the filing of the presidential reference against Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Lawyers associations have observed a complete strike on all the days of hearing of the reference by the Supreme Judicial Council in Islamabad.

Responding positively to the associations’ call, city-based lawyers stayed away from proceedings of the Sindh High Court, the City Courts and Malir District Court on Thursday as the CJP appeared before the SJC for the hearing of the reference.

They also took out a procession from the City Courts and staged a sit-in on a section of M. A. Jinnah Road, disrupting vehicular traffic for an hour.

Karachi Bar Association’s President Iftikhar Javaid Qazi and General Secretary Naeem Qureshi addressed the protesters and condemned Gen Pervez Musharraf’s move to unseat the CJP. President of the People’s Lawyers Forum Shahadat Awan, President Pakistan of the PML-N Lawyers Forum Arshad Jadoon, and others, including Tariq Niazi, Khalid Abbasi, Hanif Bhatti, Hafeez Baloch, Chaudhry Sattar, K. K. Javaid Khan, Nihal Hashmi and Mushtaq Awan also spoke on the occasion.

The speakers condemned the government’s alleged tactics to change certain lawyers’ loyalties in its efforts to divide the fraternity and sabotage the campaign. They made it clear that holding of seminars and rallies in favour of the president’s move could not change the opinion of a huge majority of lawyers backing the CJP’s stand and supremacy of the judiciary.

Deploring the elements acting on the government’s dictates, they said such people were in fact not lawyers but selfish elements who had nothing to do with the profession.

They also slammed the government for subjecting lawyers to violence in Islamabad for taking out a procession and holding a demonstration, maintaining that freedom of expression through peaceful protests was the fundamental right of every citizen, including lawyers.

They also questioned the ruling PML’s tall claim of having restored democracy asking: “What type of democracy they have established as people, and even lawyers and journalists, are not allowed to express their views?”

They said the international community must take notice of the atrocities being committed on lawyers, media people and the general public across the country.

They declared that lawyers having any political views were struggling for the only goal, i.e. “liberating the judiciary from the clutches of military dictators.”