Advocate’s misconduct: Court employees boycott work after clash with lawyers

Hundreds stage protest at district courts, LHC after reader gets thrashed

LAHORE: Court employees boycotted work for several hours after a lawyer thrashed one of their colleagues at the civil courts on Tuesday.

More than a hundred court employees suspended work after staging a protest at district courts and Lahore High Court (LHC) after the lawyer thrashed a court official.

Some lawyers led by Advocate Malik Imran had thrashed a reader, Faisal, for not knowing an address of a certain court.

A source told The Express Tribune that a scuffle broke out between the two once the advocate used derogatory remarks against the reader. For the support of the advocate, lawyers gathered and threatened the court official with dire consequences.

To protest against the misconduct of the lawyer, court workers boycotted work for several hours.

The suspension of judicial work caused hindrance for several case proceedings. The employees marched towards LHC tried to meet with the chief justice to record their protest. However, the court’s registrar directed them to submit a written complaint; he assured that their grievances would be addressed.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Lahore Bar Association (LBA) President Arshad Jahangir Jhoja strongly condemned the incident and said such misconduct by unprofessional lawyers was unacceptable.

This is the second incident this month to affect judicial work. Earlier, LBA Vice-President Rana Saeed Anwar was suspended by a seven-member advisory committee headed by LHC chief justice over misconduct towards judges of the lower court. After which lawyers boycotted the courts and demanded resignation of the chief justice.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2016.