Addressing a press conference on behalf of the lawyers’ National Coordination Council here on Monday, he accused the ruling party of having violated election promises and repeated solemn commitments and said that they planned to hold a demonstration on the Constitution Avenue in Islamabad to mark the day. “Everybody is invited.”
Emphatically saying that ‘no decision had yet been taken to stage a sit-in’, he said the protest’s “timing, logistics and mechanics” would be worked out later. He said that other details might have been decided if the media had not stormed the Sindh High Court Bar Association’s committee room where members of the coordination council’s steering committee were meeting, he said, referring to the media people’s insistence to hold the press briefing at 5 p.m. as scheduled.
According to Mr Ahsan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry would “decorate lawyers rendering sacrifices during the movement for an independent judiciary”.
The first such ceremony would be held in Lahore on Oct 23 and another in Hyderabad on Nov 15, he said.
Referring to the international jurists’ conference that was to be held in early October, Mr Ahsan said it had been cancelled because of the Marriott Hotel blast. Justice Iftikhar, he said, would visit the United States in the third week of November to receive the Medal of Freedom conferred on him by the Harvard University.
The honour had previously been conferred on Nelson Mandela and US Justice Thurgot Marshal.
Denying that the lawyers’ resolve for restoration of the independence of judiciary was weakening, Mr Ahsan said it was as firm as ever.
He said that the deposed judges’ decision to take a fresh oath had relieved the pressure on the government only for the time being. The judges who had taken a fresh oath had accepted that their removal on Nov 3, 2007, was constitutionally valid, he added. It set a bad precedent and another “adventurer may feel prompted not only to sack superior court judges but also detain them to subjugate the judiciary”, Mr Ahsan said.
The movement, the SCBA chief said, had, however, been owned by the entire civil society to advance the cause of justice, transparency, good governance and accountability. It would continue till the reinstatement of the last deposed judge in accordance with the Constitution. He said the lawyers’ movement had already won historic achievements. It made possible the return of exiled political leaders, the holding of elections on schedule and Gen Pervez Musharraf’s relinquishment of the office of army chief.
He said if Justice Iftikhar was functional as the CJ, he would have taken notice of the ever rising prices, load-shedding, burying women alive in Balochistan and other such issues.