This is apropos of S. T. Hussain’s letter ‘Democracy and lawyers’, I take exception to his view that lawyers “protesting against the government are actually against democracy in Pakistan.” I don't know how he reached this conclusion.

In a democratic country, all people, including lawyers, have the right to protest when they see their government leaders looting the national exchequer and not doing anything to solve the problems of the people.

Not only have lawyers played a leading role in bringing down unpopular governments in the past, but it was also a lawyer, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who despite massive opposition created Pakistan.

We should be grateful that we still have able lawyers who cannot be bought.

SHAKIR LAKHANI Karachi

Sophisticated protest

THERE are two parts of the judiciary, the bench and the bar. The former’s main job is to dispense fair and impartial justice while the lawyers have to argue their cases in courts in order to help the court arrive at a just conclusion.

For this, they charge their clients a fee and are bound to be present on every date of hearing and discharge their professional duties. They ought to be more concerned about the interest of their clients.

But after the restoration of an independent judiciary, the legal fraternity seems to have gone out of track. They forgot that they fought for the rule of law.

Instead young lawyers are shirking their duties because they perceive themselves to be a force for the judiciary every time there is some judicial crisis or a standoff between the government and the judiciary.

Their behaviour with lower court judges, with police, prosecution and media men is highly objectionable.

Lawyers take the law into their own hands, come out of the courts, protesting against the presiding officer and demanding his transfer. A few days ago such an incident occurred at Lahore.

The bar declared a boycott of courts across the country. On that day, according to Saad Rasool, a lawyer based in Lahore, 15,000 cases were to be heard in Punjab courts. In these cases, parties with their witnesses attend courts only to get another date. The accused can get advantage of the absence of lawyers while the aggrieved suffer losses. To me, this seemed to be an incentive for corruption in lower courts.

Can anyone realise the difficulties, mental and financial losses suffered by clients due to strike by lawyers? It appears that senior lawyers have become hostage to the emotions of young lawyers.

If 15,000 cases were in Punjab alone, a similar number must be in other provinces as well. The result is that people are losing confidence in the judiciary.

The chief justice may think about directing the bars to avoid boycotting courts because there are other sophisticated ways of holding protests.

RAJA SHAFAATULLAH Islamabad