LBA elections: ‘21st Amendment a suicide attack on parliament’

Jehangir, Hamid Khan flay amendment

LAHORE: Former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) presidents Asma Jehangir and Hamid Khan on Saturday assailed the 21st Amendment to the Constitution.

They were speaking at the sessions court complex after arriving there to support candidates fielded by the Friends’ Group and the Professional Group respectively in the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) elections on Saturday. They said the amendment constituted ‘a suicide attack on the parliament.’

Jehangir said the nation could not be rid of terrorism by setting up military courts. She said lawyers had not let military courts to be established during the tenure of former president Pervez Musharraf but a popularly-elected parliament had given the green light to their constitution.

She said the notion of trying to check terrorism by setting up military courts deserved to be censured. Jehangir said the phenomenon should have been debated in the National Assembly to ascertain the founts of terrorism and finalise a strategy to eradicate it from the nation. She deplored ‘the imposition of 17 men over the parliament.’

Khan denounced the amendment saying that the setting up of military courts had given nothing to the nation. “Did the establishment of military courts during the tenure of former presidents Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Ziaul Haq deliver anything?,” he said. He said military courts had been used to convict suspects without evidence. Khan said existing structures of investigation and prosecution should be strengthened to dispense justice to suspects following their arrest instead of setting up military courts. He said military courts could be used to further vested political interests.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2015.