Lawyer-judge differences: Bar leaders walk out over chief justice’s ‘black sheep’ remark

Court employees told the judges about the lawyers’ misconduct.

LAHORE:

Some Lahore Bar Association representatives walked out of a seminar on Court Management and Culture of Tolerance organised by the Punjab Judicial Academy after some lawyers’ conduct was strongly condemned at the event, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Several court employees told the judges at the event that many lawyers forcibly took away case files from record rooms, and beat up court staff who questioned them. They said that lawyers had lowered their reputation in the public’s eyes, as they asked litigants for bribes they said needed to be paid for case copies. They said these lawyers misbehaved with judges and locked court rooms when cases were not decided in their favour.

Lahore Bar Association President Chaudhary Ishtiaq told The Express Tribune that Lahore High Court Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial had responded by saying that the time had come to expel the black sheep. Ishtiaq said Bandial had apparently incited the judges against the lawyers.

He said the seminar had been organised to humiliate lawyers. He said he had never heard of subordinate court staff complaining to superior court judges about lawyers.

He claimed that some people at the LHC had organised the seminar because of  Lahore Bar Association’s stance regarding the division of district courts. He said Additional District and Sessions Judge Javed Iqbal Warraich had been encouraged to file a misconduct reference against the  Lahore Bar Association general secretary and senior vice president. The reference was dismissed by the Punjab Bar Council.  He said a conspiracy was being hatched to divide the LBA in order to divide its strength.

Chaudhary Ishtiaq said that a general body meeting had been called on Tuesday (today) to discuss the nepotism, corruption and improper conduct of judges.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2014.