Karachi Bar strike: Lawyers on strike until NGOs ousted

The bar believes that two central jail NGOs are stealing their clients.

KARACHI:

The Karachi Bar Association (KBA) has threatened to boycott the courts unless the NGOs operating at the central jail are removed within seven days.

The KBA held their general body meeting at the Shuhada-e-Punjab Hall at the city courts and passed a joint resolution. The NGOs are offering free defence to criminals within the jail, thus taking prospective clients away from the lawyers.

A total of 250 members of the KBA and Sindh Bar Council attended in the meeting. The lawyers shouted slogans against the NGOs, discussed the issue and finally decided to evacuate their offices that are at the ground floor of the city courts’ south district building.

Soon after the decision was passed, the lawyers ransacked the offices of the two NGOs and removed their furniture. The lawyers are of the opinion that the NGOs are working illegally and are affecting their finances. They have threatened to attack the central jails if the NGOs are not gone by the end of the seven-day period.

KBA general secretary Syed Haider Imam Rizvi told The Express Tribune that they had taken the issue to the Sindh High Court chief justice who had appointed Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Gulzar Ahmed to look into the case. The judges had assured the bar that the offices will be removed from the courts premises.

Taking this as a green signal, the lawyers decided to remove the offices’ furniture and belongings themselves. Rizvi said that they will remain on strike until the offices are removed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 13^th, 2011.