KARACHI, March 12: There is pressing need to improve the standard of legal profession to enhance the quality of justice, speakers at a Sindh Bar Council ‘orientation session’ said here on Saturday.

Addressing the session and a reception held by Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan for the incoming and outgoing SBC members in his capacity as council chairman, Sindh High Court Chief Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad said he would place before the SHC administration committee a proposal for conducting the written test for enrolment to the profession. The proposal was made by SBC executive committee chairman Abrar Hasan.

Commending the work of the outgoing SBC members, many of whom have been re-elected, the CJ said there was always room for an improvement and that efforts made by the council would take time to yield results. More subjects had been added to the Sindh Judicial Academy training curricula. Refresher courses had been devised even for additional district judges, for learning is a life-long process, he added.

The CJ urged the SBC to tighten its disciplinary regime. He said he receives two or three complaints every week containing serious allegations against advocates. In certain cases, lakhs of rupees were allegedly charged by the counsel but they refused to appear when the cases were fixed for hearing. He marked the complaints to the SBC disciplinary committee but was unaware of action taken by it.

Mr Abrar Hasan earlier called for a more active role by high court judges in the matters of enrolment of advocates and disciplinary action against them.

He agreed with the AG that the entry test prescribed for enrolment was defective. Not a single applicant or candidate had ever failed and the general perception was that the candidates were tutored in the exam hall.

The outgoing SBC, he said, held 28 general sessions during its five-year tenure. The benevolent fund amount payable to lawyers or their legal heirs had been considerably increased. Two hundred and twenty death claims were settled and paid and medical grants were sanctioned to 4,500 advocates. Licences of 88 lawyers were suspended for misconduct. In all, 2950 advocates were enrolled for the lower courts and 2750 for the high court.

Outgoing SBC vice-chairman Yasin Khan Babar also spoke.