LAHORE, Nov 6: Lawyers on Thursday gathered in front of judges’ gate and criticised the Lahore High Court chief justice and other judges in protest against the suo motu proceedings into locking of lower courts on Nov 4.

Some 50, out of about 1,000 protesting lawyers, marching towards the Charing Cross, stopped in front of judges’ gate of the LHC and started chanting slogans against the judges through a megaphone.

The Lahore Bar Association’s action of locking the courtrooms and a sharp response by the administrative committee of the high court has driven a wedge between the sitting judges and the lawyers seeking restoration of the deposed judges.

Several lawyers at the general house meeting of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) said they would stand with their colleagues, who locked the courtrooms, if the judges passed any order against them. At the rally too, the presidents of the LHCBA and the LBA marched shoulder to shoulder in a show of unity between the two bars.

Members of LHCBA, the LBA and a few workers of Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam and Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat were present in the rally. A woman and a man represented the PML-N at the rally although lawyers, and recently a deposed judge, Justice Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, had urged the party to improve its’ presence in the lawyers’ rally.

Neither the group called the Concerned Citizens of Pakistan nor the Students Action Committee attended the protest.

A group of lawyers chanted slogans against President Asif Ali Zardari and Governor Salman Taseer. The lawyers made speeches in front of the Punjab Assembly on The Mall and later dispersed peacefully.

Earlier, addressing the LBA, its president Manzoor Qadir said he had given the call to lock courtrooms.

He added the lawyers were fighting for an independent judiciary and did not believe in running into a conflict with the judiciary.

Addressing the LHCBA, Pakistan Bar Council member Hamid Khan said the proposal to lock courtrooms was on the lawyers’ agenda but it should have been done in coordination with other bars throughout the country. He added on November 3, 2007, Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf had pulled a coup against the judiciary by sending the army to shut down the Supreme Court and all the high courts.

“At that time a seven-member Supreme Court bench had declared illegal the imposition of emergency, the Provisional Constitution Order and the oath of office order,” Mr Khan said, criticising the sitting judges for “flouting” the Supreme Court order and accepting oath under the PCO issued by a dictator.

He said the LHC took suo motu notice of the locking of courtrooms, which was a symbolic exercise but failed to take any notice of the imposition of emergency on November 3 and beating of lawyers on November 5, last year. Mr Khan added the LHCBA and the whole lawyers’ community stood behind the LBA — which had locked courtrooms on Nov 4.

He said the perpetrator of Nov 3 action was still being given president’s protocol, and the judiciary watched in silence. He said the judges would be responsible if the situation spun out of control.

Former Lahore High Court Bar Association president Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari said lawyers would physically restrain those who tried to harm their colleagues. “If judges want to start a fire, the lawyers, who did not submit to Gen Musharraf, would not watch in silence,” he said. He predicted a surge in the movement because of the suo motu notice.

Save Judiciary Committee member Mian Jamil Akhter said the LHC chief justice, who headed the inquiry into November 5 police action against lawyers, did not give a proper inquiry report, whereas he formed a bench to proceed against lawyers. “The arrest of even a single lawyer would ignite a full-scale war,” he said.