LAHORE, March 12: The Pakistan Bar Council has urged all Bar councils and associations in the country not to invite Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmad and Justice Qazi Farooq to their functions.
The council also issued show cause notices to Senators-elect Dr Khalid Ranjha, S.M. Zafar and Wasim Sajjad.
The PBC executive committee, at a meeting convened by its chairman Muhammad Kazim Khan at the Lahore office on Wednesday, resolved that both had ceased to remain as judges of the Supreme Court. They had also lost legal and moral authority since they decided not to retire on their respective dates of retirement.
“The PBC calls upon all Bar councils and associations not to allow these retired judges to create any disunity amongst the members of the legal fraternity,” the resolution said.
The PBC also resolved that its ex-officio chairman Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan would not be allowed to preside over its meetings in future. Through a press statement, Mr Khan had supported extention in the retirement age of the superior courts’ judges. The statement was “a blatant attempt on part of the federation’s chief law officer to mislead the nation and to save his job”. The attorney-general also attempted to frustrate PBC’s decision to de-notify provincial adviser Rana Ejaz Ahmad from the list of its members. The attorney-general delayed issuance of the de-notification maliciously, as a result Rana Ejaz obtained stay order from the Lahore High Court to this effect.
The council took a serious note of the views expressed by Senators-elect Dr Khalid Ranjha, S.M. Zafar and Wasim Sajjad on the Legal Framework Order during a debate on television.
The PBC issued them show-cause notice as to why their cases might not be referred to the disciplinary committee for action.
The meeting was of the view that the three members had not only tried to justify that the LFO was part of the Constitution but had also depreciated the stance and struggle of the Bar councils and associations against it.
The PBC committee also approved amendments in the rules of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). It was decided that in future, SCBA’s president would be elected from each province on rotation-basis and his tenure would be of one year instead of two years.
The meeting appreciated the stance of the opposition parties on the LFO in parliament.
The council condemned the alleged attempts of certain government agencies to harass Senator-elect Farooq Hamid Naik, also a PBC member, and requested the chairman to take up the matter with authorities concerned.