The Islamabad District Bar Association is all set to elect its new governing body on January 14, 2017 and the campaign is in full swing in chambers located in and around F-8 courts. Among the advocates who’ll vote in the upcoming elections many carry fake degrees and licenses.
Last year in March two female fraudsters who have been practicing as advocates in district courts were captured and the cases were registered against them which surfaced the speculations about the exact numbers of fake degree and license holder lawyers, practicing in district courts. In April, 2016, a story, published in Pakistan Today, had revealed that many senior as well as junior advocates in the district courts have fake degrees and that their attempts to get the same verified by the bar have been thwarted.
It is pertinent to mention that every president of the bar has promised to verify the degrees of the bar members. Attempts in this regard were made in 2011-2012 by then president Syed Javed Akbar Shah and in 2016-2017 by outgoing president Syed Muhammad Akbar. Both campaigns were initiated in Islamabad Bar by their presidents but nothing happened.
Many reasons contributed to the failure like bar politics, grouping along various ethnic, sectarian and political lines, senior-junior divide and lack of will.
Unfortunately, the situation is identical in other bar councils in the country. In many small cities of Pakistan, advocates who neither have a degree nor a license appear before the court and plead.
In order to practice before any court in Punjab, Punjab Bar Council issues licenses to law graduates. However, the High Court itself has become a highly politicised entity as a former member confided to Pakistan Today that members not only sympathised with the fake license holder but also protected them from legal consequences as well.
‘There is this one case filed 20 years ago at PBC regarding fake degrees of two lawyers from Rawalpindi. The case is still pending and that instance alone is testimony of how serious Punjab Bar Council is in the matter’, he said.
Advocate Chaudhry Faizan, a young lawyer from Islamabad, said that despite many promises by bar officials, no action whatsoever has been taken against fake lawyers in the past year.
The district bar associations have thrown the ball in provincial bar council’s court. The members of district bars say that they only grant membership based on license given by provincial bar council. The finger-pointing and imputation does not seem to end.
Advocate Abdul Fayyaz, chairman of the Executive Committee of Pakistan Bar Council said that PBC deals with Supreme Court lawyers only. However, they’ve sent recommendations to provincial bar councils to take action against fake lawyers.
“A fire broke out a decade or so back in the record room of Punjab Bar Council, a huge bulk of record was burnt in that fire, including degrees and record. We are scrutinising the degrees lot-wise, the senior most lawyers will come first, their licenses be checked along with the degrees. The fake degrees will be separated from the genuine ones,” said Syed Intizar Mehdi Shah, member of Punjab Bar Council.
However, with only a week left till new bar president enters office, the fake degree holders run the roost in Islamabad District Courts.