Supreme Court Bar Association: Razvi claims to win back ‘angry friends’ ahead of polls

Corruption is a central concern for this election, he says at dinner for lawyers.

KARACHI:

Justice (retd) Rasheed A. Razvi, who wants to be elected the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, is eyeing a clear victory in the coming elections as he claims to have won back “angry friends” and mustered the support of stalwarts who matter in these polls.

The current president is Asma Jahangir, who defeated the Hamid Khan group last year.

“We are contesting the SCBA polls from the platform of ‘Save Pakistan Panel’, fielding the 2007 team with the same zeal and spirit,” he said at a dinner held for him and senior most lawyers at a hotel here on Monday.

Renowned lawyers Muneer A Malik, Hamid Khan, Aitzaz Ahsan, Qazi Anwar, Baz Muhammad Kakar, Hadi Shakeel and Akram Shaikh are supporting the panel and they want the independence of the bar and judiciary.

The concept of an independent judiciary is incomplete without the independence of the bar, he said, adding that this would be the central issue for lawyers during the elections.

Our group and friends have been raising their voice for the independence of the bar for a long time as they feel that an independent bar would ultimately result in a stronger, assertive and independent judiciary, said Razvi in his address.

According to him, the independence of the bar, and other sectors, was affected by the rampant corruption of the rulers. It has become a practice to bribe and influence lawyers to get results that suit corrupt leaders.

He said that Pakistani lawyers see corruption as the biggest issue in the country and that they would work to fight it, especially at the government level.

Razvi also brought up the shortage of judges to demand that all vacancies should be filled immediately so that the huge backlog of cases could be reduced. He regretted that the housing scheme for Supreme Court lawyers as well as their pension scheme has been shelved and he vowed that if elected president of the bar association, he would work to revive them. He said a record number of law officers were recruited in the ministry of law and it is strongly believed that a majority of them were recruited on political grounds.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2011.