Justice Bhagwandas was speaking at the oath-taking ceremony of the Karachi Bar Association held on the City Courts premises.
He urged the legal fraternity to continue their struggle for the independence of the judiciary, supremacy of the constitution, the rule of law and the restoration of the judges as they were about to achieve their goals.
Many attacks had been made on the constitution and the independent judiciary during the rule of the different regimes since 1973, constitutional institutions barred from functioning independently and the nation suffered immensely, he said. Though the lawyers’ ongoing struggle had enabled some constitutional institutions to perform independently, the objective of the movement had not been achieved yet, he added. He said it was the responsibility of the lawyers’ community to protect the fundamental rights, independence of the judiciary and supremacy of the constitution. He said the lawyers’ struggle in the aftermath of March 9, 2007 was exemplary.
The deposed judges, including the Supreme Court’s Ghulam Rabbani, the Sindh High Court’s Sabihuddin Ahmed, Sarmad Jalal Osmany, Gulzar Ahmed, Athar Saeed, Salman Ansari, Maqbool Baqar, Musheer Alam, Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Fasial Arab, Arshad Siraj Memon and Zafar Ahmed Sherwani, president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association Rasheed A. Rizvi and president of the Malir Bar Association Zahoor Mehar also attended the ceremony.
Justice Bhagwandas described the deposed chief justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as the hero of the whole episode and said he was punished for protecting human rights and providing justice to the common and poor people.
“Why was the government afraid of him? He was not doing anything against the government but was performing his duty with honesty and according to the law and the constitution of the county. I hope he and the other deposed judges of the supreme and high courts are reinstated within a few weeks.
“Soon after the imposition of the state of emergency in the country on Nov 3, a seven-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, through an order, had declared the promulgation of the Provisional Constitution Order as unconstitutional, illegal and immoral, and all the deposed judges were reinstated through that order, which barred the judges from taking an oath under the PCO since its promulgation was unconstitutional. The deposed judges would automatically be reinstated when a genuine and real democracy is resorted to the country,” he said.
“About 60 judges of the Supreme Court and high courts who did not take an oath under the PCO were offered attractive packages and when they turned down the offer, they were threatened that they would be deprived of their pensions and other benefits of retirement. But no law on the earth allowed the government to do so,” he said, and slammed the promulgation of an ordinance in which the deposed judges were barred from practising law and said it was illegal since those judges were ousted in an unconstitutional manner.
Deposed judge of the Supreme Court Ghulam Rabbani said the judiciary was the most important pillar of any country which provided relief to the mighty and the poor alike, and the bar and the bench were the two wheels of a chair which could not function without wheels. He said he hoped that by continuing their struggle, the lawyers would achieve their objectives soon.
The promulgation of the PCO was an unconstitutional and illegal act when the judiciary and the media were stopped from functioning and the judges detained and deprived of normal amenities of life, he said, and lauded the role of Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd, Munir A. Malik and Justice (retd) Tairq Mehmood for their contributions to the ongoing struggle.
Deposed chief justice of the Sindh High Court Sabihuddin Ahmed said it was the first time in the history of Pakistan that the PCO was promulgated and the constitution was defied, and the judges made a history by not taking an oath under the PCO and that their names would be written in golden letters for their contribution to the independence of the judiciary.
The president of the Karachi Bar Association, Mehmood-ul-Hasan, pledged to continue the ongoing struggle till the restoration of the deposed judges and the independence of the judiciary. He ruled out the possibility of a free, fair and transparent election under Pervez Musharraf as president. “The so-called president was promoting ethnic prejudice in the nation, which would harm the federation,” he added.
KBA General Secretary Naeem Qureshi also spoke.
The chief gust, Justice Rana Bhagwandas, administered the oath of office to the newly-elected cabinet of the Karachi Bar Association and urged them to work for the independence of the judiciary, supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.
