No new benches: Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur lawyers slam LHC decision

Say they will boycott court proceedings on July 23

DERA GHAZI KHAN: Members of the Dera Ghazi Khan Bar Association and the president of the Rajanpur Bar Association held a meeting on Wednesday to condemn the Lahore High Court’s decision to not set up high court benches in five divisions of the province.

The legal fraternity in five divisions – Sahiwal, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Sargodha – had earlier announced that they would boycott court proceedings in protest against the decision passed by a full bench of the LHC.

Dera Ghazi Khan Bar Association president Behram Khan Buzdar said that most judges of the High Court were not from these divisions. He slammed members of the Multan Bar Association for supporting the LHC’s decision. They announced that they would boycott courts on July 23. “We will also place banners at various places in the courts to record our protest,” Buzdar said.

He said the legal fraternity in the five divisions passed over in the LHC decision would have to band together in this regard. “We will raise our voices at every platform.”

Buzdar announced that they would send a representative delegation of the bar to visit other divisions. He said they would develop a strategy together and deliberate on ways to make the campaign more effective and organised.

Presidents of the Dera Ghazi Khan Bar Association and the Rajanpur Bar Association said that the LHC’s decision to reject the establishment of benches in the five divisions, especially in Dera Ghazi Khan, reflected the LHC’s dictatorial approach towards matters affecting the entire province.

The Rajanpur Bar Association president said that the LHC had rejected fair demands put forward by lawyers from the divisions. “We are together in our struggle for the establishment of new bars.”

He said that a plan of action would be made in a meeting with the representatives of all bar associations. “We must rally together on this issue,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2016.