Judiciary stakes: Bar-bench bond breached in 2010 clashes

Lawyers movement forgotten as year dominated by clashes within legal community.

LAHORE: Just three years after establishing what appeared to be an unbreakable bond, the bar and bench turned against each other at all levels in 2010.

In March 2007, the country’s lawyers stood behind Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry after his attempted suspension by Gen Pervez Musharraf, launching a historic movement for judicial independence.

This year, lawyers boycotted the courts in protest at the CJP’s policies, broke the door to the chambers of the chief justice of the Lahore High Court (LHC), and threw shoes at a sessions judge.

The Punjab Bar Council (PbBC) took the lead on May 15, 2010, when its vice chairman Mumtaz Mustafa announced that the bars of the province would boycott the courts every Saturday in protest at the National Judicial Policy. He said the policy, under which judges were instructed to clamp down on continuances, hurt lawyers and litigants. The boycott is still continuing, despite efforts to resolve it by the then chief justice of the LHC.

But the major flash point of the year revolved around a district and sessions judge, Zawar A Sheikh, and manifested in violent street clashes between police and black-coated advocates. In June, the Lahore Bar Association demanded that the judge quit for his alleged rudeness towards lawyers who appeared before him.

On July 12, lawyers led by LBA president Sajid Bashir marched from Aiwan-e-Adl to the Sessions Court, barged into Sheikh’s chambers and forced him out.

They stopped all proceedings, threw stones and shoes at Sheikh and other judges as they tried to flee in their cars, and closed the gates so they couldn’t leave.

The police eventually arrived to rescue the frightened judges. The subordinate judiciary announced a 15-day strike. Then LHC Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif tried to reconcile the two sides, but to no avail. CJP Chaudhry took suo motu notice and set up a committee headed by an LHC judge to encourage the two sides to find a negotiated solution to the dispute, but that committee failed too.

On September 30, a group of LBA lawyers broke windows in the courtroom of the LHC chief justice and manhandled the registrar, Abdul Sattar Asghar, when he tried to stop them. They also burnt an effigy of Sheikh in the courtroom. The police were called in and they arrested more than a hundred LBA lawyers.

This intensified the protest, with the lawyers blaming the LHC chief justice for the police excesses. On October 3, the beleaguered Justice Sharif sent Sheikh on one week of forced leave. In response, some 1,300 lower court judges handed in their resignations.

The escalating crisis came to a head on October 10, when the police again came face to face with LBA lawyers. The blackcoats wanted to march from the Sessions Court to the LHC to show their anger at the chief justice.

The city district government banned public protest and heavy police contingents used teargas and baton charges to stop the lawyers from coming on to the streets.

Justice Sharif finally relented and transferred the controversial sessions judge, making him a member of the LHC inspection team.

Before he retired from the LHC on December 8, Justice Sharif tried to reach out to the LBA by sending them an unusually large grant. They refused to accept it. At the chief justice’s retirement reference, the PbBC vice chairman accused him of creating the conflict between the bar and bench.

At the end of October, the Supreme Court Bar Association elected Asma Jahangir as its leader. The new president aimed several criticisms the Supreme Court’s way in her first few speeches, saying it relied too much on suo motu actions, interfered in bar elections and was stepping on parliament’s legislative territory.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2010.