LAHORE, March 20: Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Aitzaz Ahsan has said his bar is not dependent on Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) to issue a call for protest over any issue, including the restoration of the deposed judges.He was talking to Dawn here on Thursday about the PBC's recent decision that required all bars across Pakistan to seek "prior permission" for issuing a protest call.

Sources say Mr Ahsan's call for observing a 'black flag week' had irked the PPP-affiliated PBC members, who forwarded a requisition for dropping rallies and restraining all bars from issuing protest calls on their own.

PPP Senator Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, a former PPP MPA, Raja Shafqat Abbasi, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari's counsel Farooq H Naik and three other PBC members had moved the requisition discussed in Islamabad on Sunday.

To a question if it was a PPP-motivated requisition, Mr Ahsan said he was certain that the party which manifestly showed its intention of restoring the judges in the Bhurbon Declaration, had nothing to do with it. To another question, he said the PBC's consent was not necessary for any bar association requiring a call for a strike on any local or national issue.

The requisition had asked the PBC to direct all bar associations to stop the protest, "which has already paralysed the judicial system of this country and caused colossal sufferings to the litigants". The second portion of the requisition asked the PBC to check whether any bar association had the right to give a nation-wide protest call to the lawyers other than the PBC.

Talking to Dawn, PBC member Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari said all the members opposed the first portion, which was consequently withdrawn. However, he said, some members proposed that all bars be directed to 'consult' the PBC before issuing any protest call.

Ansari said several members including Sardar Latif Khan Khosa and Dr Khalid Ranjha objected to the word 'consultation' and instead proposed seeking 'prior permission' for any call.

He said when the matter was put to vote, nine out of 20 PBC members voted in favour of 'prior permission' whereas six voted for "consultation". He said the division on the subject appeared to be an outcome of jealousy to the status Mr Ahsan had attained during his efforts for the restoration of democracy.

Some lawyers feel the whole controversy pertains to the difference in political thinking on the issue of breaking the judicial logjam. Former Lahore High Court Bar Association secretary Shahid Mahmood Bhatti said the difference in the approaches of the two mainstream political parties to the issue was now taking toll on the lawyers' unity.

He said there were those who neither wanted to confront the establishment, nor the judiciary and thought they could succeed in ultimately ushering in democracy by first finding their roots in the power corridors. Mr Bhatti added the other point of view pertained to settling the ills facing the country once and for all.The latter believed the army's role in politics should be done away with and the judges must be restored without any flexibility, he said. They had been asking the judges to stand up against army interventions and stop endorsing martial laws on the basis of the doctrine of necessity.

He said now when the judges had put their foot down, they felt that they could not desert them and jeopardise all efforts for defining a clear role for the state institutions.

— Syed Faisal Shakeel