The Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) passed on Thursday a unanimous resolution resenting the appointment of judicial officers in bulk to the Lahore High Court (LHC), neglecting the city’s lawyers in the process undertaken by the Judicial Commission (JC).
The resolution, presented by LHCBA Secretary Arshad Malik Awan called for filling in vacancies of the judges with competent lawyers to clear the backlog of cases. The house also expressed solidarity with the Bahawalpur lawyers. Presided over by the LHCBA President Asghir Ali Gill, the general house of the bar demanded courts should be operated strictly under the constitution and the law.
He said that he was determined to purge the bar of lobbying and politics and questioned the lawyers’ representatives in the JC as to why they remained silent when fingers were being raised on lawyers based on agencies’ reports. He said law and provincial ministers from Sindh committed contempt of court, while the LHC registrar was made a judge despite the fact that he was named in a criminal case. He condemned ignoring the Lahore lawyers in the appointment of judges.
Supreme Court Bar Association President Asma Jahangir said a number of competent lawyers have been thrown out of the list of prospective judges in light of reports from the secret agencies. She said that good people for this office would only be available in the bar. She urged the judiciary to take up cases of important nature pending over the last many years and provide justice to the masses without delay.
Azam Nazir Tarar, Liaqat Ali Qureshi, Muhammad Sharif Chauhan and Ahmad Awais criticized the secret agencies’ reports, which led to the rejection of lawyers for consideration as judges. They said most of the appointees were from the judicial services, which had set a new trend in the induction of judges. They said lawyers made sacrifices for an independent judiciary but all that those people were made judges who did little for the cause.
They said judicial officers decided cases under pressure and they should not be made LHC judges.
