Lahore lawyers hold key to SCBA polls

October 27 battle to have a bearing on current judiciary-executive row.

ISLAMABAD: With half the votes in their pockets, lawyers from Lahore region hold the key to the crucial October 27 Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections, the outcome of which will have a far-reaching impact on the current judiciary-executive row.

Of the total 2,126 eligible voters for the SCBA elections, the largest chunk of 1,508 belongs to Punjab, including 1,018 from Lahore region alone.

The PPP government, through its lawyers’ wing (Peoples Lawyers Forum), is backing Asma Jahangir for the top slot of SCBA, a body that has a significant say in the legal fraternity. It was the forum of SCBA through which the lawyers ran a successful movement for the restoration of judiciary for two years.

On the SCBA electoral list, Punjab has a dominant presence: Lahore has 1,018 eligible votes, Rawalpindi/Islamabad 312, Bahawalpur 62, and Multan 116 votes. In sharp contrast, the entire Sindh mainly Karachi has only 328 eligible votes. Similarly, Quetta has 105 votes and Peshawar 185.

Currently, three contenders are in the run for the SCBA president’s job: Asma Jahangir is backed by the Latif Khosa Group and PLF, Ahmed Awais is supported by Hamid Khan Professional Group while Ikram Chaudhry is contesting the polls as an independent candidate.

Bar rooms in Lahore have turned into battlegrounds as election activities have reached feverish pitch, as contesting groups run from pillar to post to muster support for their candidates.

In the given political scenario the legal community views the upcoming SCBA polls an extraordinary event since it believes it will have a far-reaching impact on the current judiciary-executive tussle, with the former pressing the latter hard to implement court decisions.

In the event of the government-backed panel winning the elections, the government will find a powerful tool in the shape of SCBA to try and subdue the increasingly assertive apex court.

The Express Tribune talked with the stakeholders of the upcoming polls with the key question whether this election will have a bearing on the judiciary-executive row or not?

Ahmad Awais and Ikram Chaudhry, the two contestants, promptly replied in the affirmative.

Ahmad Awais was of the view that Asma Jahangir is already in favour of the minus-one formula, meaning that the present judiciary is acceptable to her without Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry “and if she wins, the group will insult the judges and use derogatory language about them and also they will attempt to break the unity of lawyers”.

“They staged an artificial situation in Lahore last week on the issue of transfer of Zawar Hussain, a district and sessions judge, and showed their power but they failed in their attempt,” he added.

Ikram Chaudhry was of the opinion that to some extent, the victory of Asma will affect the hearing of NRO implementation case and review appeal of federation against the NRO verdict of Supreme Court, whose hearing will resume on November 1.

The legal experts believed that to win the ‘numbers game’ in the upcoming elections, the government sought Latif Khosa’s resignation after three days of deliberations by “the presidential law camp”.

Another objective of fielding Khosa in the legal arena was to recorganise the Peoples Lawyers Forum (PLF) to exert pressure on the independent judiciary by winning the SCBA elections.

Hamid Khan said that the government is all set to buy the loyalties of lawyers to fulfill its agenda “as Law Minister Babar Awan distributed millions of rupees in dozens of bar associations in his drive to regroup lawyers this year”.

When contacted, Latif Khosa said he does not believe in using the PLF for establishing a new ‘pressure group’. “We will support Asma Jahangir in the SCBA elections,” Khosa said.

He said that he had resigned to defuse the current situation between two institutions. “It does not mean I did it all for establishing a pressure group to bring lawyers on the street against any issue,” he explained.

Despite repeated attempts, Asma could not be reached for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2010.