LAHORE, June 24: A convention of lawyers’ representatives from across the country will be held in Lahore on July 6 to consider the reported move to amend the Constitution, the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association announced to the press on Monday.
The convention will be hosted by the Lahore High Court Bar Association with its Karachi Hall as the likely venue, PBC vice-chairman Chaudhry Ashraf Wahla, SCBA president Hamid Khan, Punjab Bar Council vice-chairman Ramzan Chaudhry and LHCBA president Chaudhry Muzammil Khan told a joint press conference at the Supreme Court registry barroom here.
Reiterating the Bar position that parliament alone has the power to amend the Constitution, they said according to reports appearing in the press, the Constitution was not being amended but was being rewritten. The proposed amendment would be more far-reaching and basic-affecting than the Eighth Amendment. Both parliament and the prime minister would be subservient to the national security council, they said.
Hamid Khan said whatever authority to amend the Constitution Gen Pervez Musharraf could claim under the Supreme Court judgment in the Zafar Ali Shah case had been undermined by the abortive presidential referendum.
He emphasized that no amendment impinging on the fundamental rights, independence of the judiciary and the federal parliamentary character of the Constitution could be made even before the referendum. Extension of the superior court judges’ retirement age would violate the independence of the judiciary.
The Bar leaders criticized the graduation qualification for legislators as undemocratic and un-Islamic. It was a clog on the voters’ right to choose their representatives, they said.
LHCBA ADOPTS MOVE: The LHCBA general body, meanwhile, adopted a resolution condemning the proposed amendments amid noisy scenes on Monday.
In fact, the opponents of the move claimed that it could not be formally discussed or voted upon but was declared to have been carried by the chair.
Introduced by Advocate Zafarullah Khan and other lawyers, the resolution said the amendments were aimed at ensuring a ‘rubber-stamp’ parliament to continue the policies of the military regime. Political parties were being provoked to boycott the elections.