LAHORE, July 9: Supreme Court Bar Association president Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan said on Wednesday that the Bush administration, not the American public, was against reinstatement of the judges deposed on Nov 3 last year.

Addressing a press conference at the Lahore High Court Bar Association, Mr Ahsan said: “Whenever the issue to restore the judges nears resolution, Richard Boucher and John Negroponte rush to Pakistan.”

He said PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif should have honoured the Murree Declaration on the restoration of judiciary. He said: “Musharraf is guilty of deposing and locking up judges in their residences and should be tried for treason.”

Mr Ahsan said the Pakistan Bar Council could not obstruct the lawyers’ movement. He disapproved of the Rs50 million grant the council received from the government.

“They had tried to create hurdles in the way of the movement in the past. However, the movement will go on unabated.”

The SCBA recently announced to hold another long march, dispute a PBC decision that no bar association or council could give a call for a countrywide action.

Mr Ahsan said a decision about the long march and sit-in would be taken by the All Pakistan Lawyers’ Representative Convention to be held in Lahore on July 19.

When asked if his foreign tour mustered enough resources to stage a sit-in, he said: “I will not answer this question. We had resources even then but faced problems on numerous counts, including absence of washrooms.”

He said he had received support from foreign bar associations for holding “international lawyers conference on the independence of the judiciary” in Islamabad from Oct 9 to 11.

He said Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry would preside over the conference on the first day and all the judges and lawyers, except the PCO judges, would be invited.

When his attention was drawn to a statement of Adviser to the PM on Interior Rehman Malik about the lawyers’ movement, he said the SCBA office-bearers would participate in the rally in Islamabad. “We will stop taking out rallies if the government restores the (deposed) judges,” he said.

He asked the Pakistan Lawyers Forum, a lawyers’ wing associated with the PPP, not to invite Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar to a convention planned for July 18.

Those planning the event should remember the words of former premier Benazir Bhutto who had categorically declared Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry as the chief justice of Pakistan, he said.