KARACHI, Jan 24: Independence of the judiciary has become a cherished objective of the people at large because of the relentless struggle launched by the legal fraternity, former Supreme Court Bar Association president Muneer A. Malik told a responsive gathering of lawyers in the Sindh High Court bar room on Thursday.
The lawyers would continue their campaign till the reinstatement of all the chief justices and judges relieved under the provisional constitution order of November 3, 2007, Mr Malik, who has also served as SHCBA president, said amid applause. He fell ill during his detention after the promulgation of emergency and addressed the lawyers after a long interval.
The independence of the judiciary, Malik said, was now a concept whose importance was realized by the entire civil society. Lawyers were not alone in rendering sacrifices for the cause of the rule of law and independence of the judiciary. The legal fraternity has achieved a success in that the common man today realized that he had a stake in the judiciary’s independence.
All political parties, he added, should now be aware that the rule of law was the surest foundation on which the edifice of democracy could be raised. A democratic system could be easily derailed in the absence of the rule of law and independent judiciary. The parties should rely on public support for achieving power through ballot and not on the blessings of foreign powers.
He commended the plan to observe ‘Yaum-i-Iftikhar ’ and praised the efforts of the association’s president, Rasheed A. Razvi, in this regard. He also felicitated his colleagues for making the protest day a success.
Boycott of City Courts
Legal proceedings remained suspended at the City Courts and the Malir District Courts on Thursday since lawyers boycotted proceedings in response to a strike call given by the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) to protest against the ousting of senior judges, the detention of top PBC leadership, amendments to the Constitution and to the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act, 1973, and the detention of deposed judges, including the deposed chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
The judges, however, remained in their chambers. Meanwhile, the KBA management has set up a hunger strike camp to protest against the ejection of judges under the provisional constitution order of Nov 3.
An estimated 290 undertrial prisoners were brought to the City Courts from different prisons but the lawyers’ boycott prevented their cases from being heard and they were taken back to their respective prisons without being produced in court. Most of the stationery shops and cabins in the City Courts remained closed and while stamp vendors initially opened, they pulled down their shutters later because of the lack of business. However, most of the canteens situated in the court premises remained open.
Meanwhile, a group of lawyers has formed a committee and announced that it has ended the boycott of court proceedings.
The group, comprising about 15 to 20 lawyers, formed a committee termed a lawyers’ welfare action committee Pakistan. The decision to end the boycott, it said, was made because lawyers were suffering financially. Headed by Rashid Ikram, the committee said that undertrial prisoners and other people were also facing severe hardships.
Commenting on the lawyers’ action committee, however, the president of the Karachi Bar Association, Mahmood ul Hassan, told Dawn that the KBA would continue its ongoing struggle for the reinstatement of deposed judges, the independence of the judiciary, the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution. Maintaining that the legal fraternity was united and that a few lawyers would not damage the struggle, he said, adding that the boycott of proceedings at the City Courts would continue every Thursday while a one-hour strike from 10.30am to 11.30am would be observed on a daily basis.
The general-secretary of the KBA, Naeem Qureshi, claimed that the few people opposing the boycott were actually employees of the city and provincial governments and vowed that the lawyers’ struggle would continue. Mr Qureshi added that the KBA general body meeting could not be held this Thursday since most of the lawyers had gone to the Sindh High Court Bar Association, where the former president of the Pakistan Bar Council, Munir A. Malik, addressed the legal fraternity.
Meanwhile, the president of the Malir Bar Association, Zahoor Hussain Mehar, told Dawn that a complete boycott of the courts was observed at the Malir bar on Thursday, in accordance with the directives of the Pakistan Bar Council.
Legal proceedings remained suspended at the Malir District Courts since lawyers refused to appear before the courts in protest to the ousting of judges and the detention of the PBC leadership. He added the struggle would until the restoration of the deposed judges.