Eminent lawyers back LHC top judge

Write to SCBA chief, asking him to disavow hooliganism

ISLAMABAD: Division among lawyers on key issues is crippling dispensing of justice across the country and in view of this situation, five retired judges and 80 SC lawyers on Friday wrote a letter to the SCBA president Rasheed A Rizvi, urging him to support the settled norms of legal practice, disavowing hooliganism.

It appeared that prominent lawyers are beginning to band together in support of the LHC CJ.



The rift among lawyers groups has been deepening ever since the end of the lawyers’ movement in March 2009. Various lawyers’ factions are not even unified on key national issues and petty politics among various groups is rendering top lawyers’ bodies redundant.

Currently, two lawyer groups are active in superior bars. One is led by Asma Jahangir and Ahsan Bhoon while the other is headed by senior attorney Hamid Khan.

After the Sindh High Court’s landmark verdict on July 31, 2009, more than 100 judges were ousted because they had been appointed on the recommendation of de facto chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar. Few ousted judges like Ahsan Bhoon, Qulb-i-Hassan, Ramzan Chaudhry and Sardar Muhammad Aslam joined bar politics after their removal.



In 2010, these judges were united under the leadership of rights activist Asma Jahangir, and her group is known as the ‘Democratic Group’. Members of the group were also in majority in the Pakistan Bar Council in last five years. Subsequently, however, Hamid Khan’s Group, which played an active role during the lawyers’ movement, secured majority over the following years in the SCBA.

Both groups have never been able to take unanimous stand on any issue. These groups are much divided over the issue of the judiciary’s self-accountability and even on the Panamagate issue.



Neither of the groups is ready to take concrete steps to discourage lawyers’ “bullying, rowdiness and misbehaviour” in courts.

Recently, SCBA, where Hamid Khan’s group is in majority, condemned the suspension of judicial work at the LHC’s Multan bench allegedly on the instructions of the chief justice of the Lahore High Court, after differences emerged between a judge and Multan High Court Bar Association’s president Sher Zaman Qureshi and other lawyers.

The controversy began on July 24 when Qureshi and some other lawyers allegedly misbehaved with Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan.



Meanwhile, the SCBA’s executive committee passed a resolution, condemning harassment by government agencies.

It appeared that professional lawyers are beginning to band together in support of the LHC CJ

On Friday, five retired judges and 80 SC lawyers wrote a letter to SCBA president Rasheed A Rizvi, expressing concern over a resolution against the LHC CJ.



They urged the SCBA president to take a clear stand on settled norms of the legal practice, disavowing hooliganism.

“As the bar association of our apex court, the SCBA should have been leading the fight against hooliganism and rowdiness by lawyers,” stated the letter.

They also wondered why instead of condemning the Multan incident, SCBA’s executive body had ignored the incident of hooliganism that occurred on August 2. “We stand firmly for both the rule of law and the dignity of the bar. But there can be no rule of law and equally no dignity of the bar, if lawyers openly flout their code of ethics.”



They stated that they favoured judicial accountability and proper conduct of judges, but they “could not excuse or justify a complete disregard by lawyers of the canons of ethical professional conduct”.

Raheel Kamran Sheikh, one of the letter’s signatories, stated that all professional lawyers were supporting the CJ LHC.

According to him, the role of both lawyers’ group “is very dubious in this matter”.



The letter also bore signatures of five former judges, Munir A Sheikh, Javed Buttar, Khalilur Rehman Khan, Karamat Nazir Bhandari and Syed Asghar Haider.

It is also signed by prominent lawyers such as Abid Hassan Manto, Kamal Azfar, Anwar Kamal, Syed Raza Kazim and Salman Akram Raja.

However, SCBA’s general secretary Aftab Bajwa rejected this stance and stated that they would soon call a nation-wide agitation campaign in support of the Multan High Court Bar Association’s president.