Hot seat: Nationwide lawyers’ strike on cards if IHC chief doesn’t resign

Lawyers protest at SC; demand decisions on all pending SJC references against judges

ISLAMABAD: Lawyers in the capital have threatened to go on a countrywide protest if the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court does not resign within a week.

While requesting the chief justice of Pakistan to decide all references pending against judges before his retirement at the end of the year, lawyers have demanded the resignation of the IHC’s top judge, Justice Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi, over his alleged involvement in making appointments in the IHC that the Supreme Court declared illegal in a recent case.

On Wednesday, representatives of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), Islamabad Bar Council (IBC), Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA) and the Islamabad District Bar Association took their ongoing protest against Justice Kasi to the SC in an attempt to pressurise the high court’s top judge to resign.

Former SC Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman – also a key figure in the illegal appointments case – had resigned soon after the apex court’s verdict came in late September. He was the IHC chief justice at the time the appointments had been made. Kasi’s brother was among the illegally appointed IHC staffers.

In an address to lawyers outside the SC, PBC member Shoaib Shaheen said corruption and nepotism cannot be tolerated in the judiciary and such issues have compelled the lawyers to come on to roads.

“Judiciary’s accountability is important and must come before the accountability of politicians,” he said while linking the issue with the ongoing Panama Papers case, which was being heard in the SC.

He announced that the protest against the incumbent CJ of the IHC would continue until he resigns for his alleged role in the illegal appointments, including that of his brother, Idrees Khan Kasi, as deputy registrar in BS-19.

He said that the lawyers would stage protest outside the parliament as well and would continue to record their protest at different forums until Justice Kasi follows the footsteps of Justice Rehman.

Among other things, he urged incumbent CJP Anwar Zaheer Jamali, to decide all pending references against all the judges before his retirement on December 31, while noting that no judge has been sent packing since 1973.

He also said that Article 209 should be abrogated if the Supreme Judicial Council – which operates under the article – cannot provide justice.

Meanwhile, the SC administration did not allow the lawyers to march into the apex court on the grounds that a hearing was in progress. Heavy contingents of police and Rangers, outnumbering the lawyers, were deployed at the entrance of the court owing to the Panama Papers hearing inside.

Arif Chaudhry, who had pleaded the case against the illegal appointments in the IHC before the SC, said that the SJC should have stopped Justice Kasi from working when he allegedly threatened during a hearing before the SJC to expose many others who, in one way or the other, were also allegedly responsible for inducting their relatives into the judiciary.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2016.