LAHORE, Jan 24: Represen-tatives of provincial bars have asked the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) to issue a call for paralysing judicial work throughout the country by not only necessitating boycott of higher courts, but the lower ones too.

The demand was voiced at a press conference attended by Punjab Bar Council vice-chairman Tariq Javed Warraich, executive chairman Arbab Ahmad Syed and member Imran Masood; NWFP Bar Council vice-chairman Qazi Muhammad Naeem, executive chairman Saeed Akhtar; Sindh Bar Council member Aaqil Lodhi.

Sardar Ahmad Nawaz Ali Zai of Balochistan Bar Council and Shaukat Kiani of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Bar Council had also sought a complete boycott of the court proceedings, said Mr Warraich.

Speaking on the occasion, NWFP Bar Council vice chairman said if the lawyers wanted to make their movement a success, they would have to paralyse all judicial work by boycotting proceedings not only in superior courts but the lower ones as well. He added the NWFP Bar Council had been the first to seek total boycott of court proceedings in the wake of the PBC’s decision to curtail the PCO-judges’ boycott. He admitted there was dissent among the lawyers on the subject.

The PbBC vice-chairman said: “We stick to our stance that lawyers shall never accept the judges who had taken oath under the PCO as legitimate judges.”

He demanded the judges, confined along with their families, should be given the freedom of movement and allowed to resume judicial work forthwith.

He said all the representatives of the provincial bars demanded the PBC should reverse its decision to limit the boycott of PCO-judges to one day. “We want complete boycott of the PCO-judges because they have taken oath to protect and serve a dictator,” he said.

He demanded Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmad Kurd, Justice Tariq Mahmood (retired) and Munir A Malik be released immediately. He condemned baton-charge and shelling on a lawyers’ rally, which had been trying to reach deposed chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry’s residence.

He said the holding of the election would not matter unless an independent chief election commissioner was appointed, a national government formed and Gen Pervez Musharraf (retired) stepped down.

Arbab Rahim Syed said the lawyers wanted Gen Musharraf’s (retired) name put on the Exit Control List and his trial under Article 6 of the Constitution.

Mr Warraich said the statement of the SCBA secretary Amin Javed Bhatti disowning the demand for complete boycott of PCO judges was his personal opinion. To another question, he said the political parties contesting the election would side with lawyers once they realised the whole process was a mere eyewash.