Lawyers of the People’s Lawyers forum (PLF) on Thursday shouted full-throated slogans against the Supreme Court at the Lahore High Court premises, expressing unflinching support for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in the wake of apex court judgment in the contempt case.
Slogans of “Jiyay Bhutto” echoed across the LHC compound while the pro-judiciary lawyers remained sitting at the bar. A large number of pro-PPP lawyers gathered at the LHC and expressed their rage against the anti-PPP judgment, invoking sympathies in the community for the prime minister. They managed to attract huge media attention and made quite a good show of a protest and expressed full support with their prime minister.
Pro-judiciary lawyer, judicial activism penal Chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique, told reporters after the verdict that “we demand immediate withdrawal of all protocols and privileges for the PM for committing contempt of Supreme Court”.Azhar said, “The PM is still defying court orders, he may be permanently disqualified from holding any office. NAB should immediately start proceeding against him and his family for investigating corruption charges.”
Talking to reporters, PPP lawyers called the judgment another case of victimization by the judiciary, refreshing the memory of ZA Bhutto.
Former Supreme Court Bar Association president Asma Jehangir appeared on the scene and said there was no need to worry as the prime minister’s disqualification was a long process. She said the PM’s disqualification would take a long time because the matter would now be forwarded to the NA speaker and then to the Election Commission and even then, nothing could be said about the outcome of that process. Asma criticized the courts, saying the apex court should have pondered over how they had damaged the image of Pakistan by the judgment.
She said Pakistan had become a country which had a convicted prime minister thanks to the farsightedness of the judiciary, which never passed such verdicts against military dictators. She said, “I would have saluted the judiciary thrice if it had passed similar verdict against any prime minister in the day of military rule.” To a question on disqualification clause Article 63, she said everybody had its own interpretation but the article was applied when the court was ridiculed. However, prime minister did not adopt such an attitude that ridiculed the court, she said, adding that the PM appeared before the court and remained submissive to the court.
“It is not a good tradition to disqualify the prime minister under Article 63,” she said, adding that if the same tradition continued, then no PM would survive in the future.
She said there was no prime minister who had not faced charges, but in case of dictators, no one had the courage to ask them to leave.
To a question, she said it was a case beyond moral limits as selectivity was observed on both sides. A pro-PPP member of the Pakistan Bar Council, Ramzan Chaudhry, said the constitution of Pakistan was silent on the procedure for removal of prime minister except through a vote of no confidence, therefore, Gilani would remain in the office despite the sentence by the Supreme Court.