- Asma says no single bar can initiate a successful movement
- IHCBA, DBA Rawalpindi undecided about post-Panama strategy
The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) clearly distanced themselves from the announcement of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) for demanding resignation from Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif.
The LHCBA asked the prime minister to either tender his resignation or get ready to face a long march of the lawyers. “If they (LHCBA) can run a movement on their own, then they better start right away. I’ve never seen that a single bar can run a lawyer’s movement. This is no way to initiate a movement,” said Asma Jahangir, leader of the Independent Group, one of the two strongest lawyer groups in the bar politics.
She agreed that morally the prime minister should resign. “But if we had that culture of resigning on moral grounds, then who would remain. I ask if JIT, supposedly, clears the prime minister then would the judges who wrote dissent notes resign,” she questioned. In her opinion, both the petitioners and respondents didn’t come before the court with clean hands.
“Whatever courts can decide they have to decide while remaining in the confines of law. The use of 184(3) to oust an elected prime minister and when army takes over you go to courts. I see it as a bad omen,” she said. She was of the opinion that despite having personal reservations about the judgment one has to respect and implement it in letter and spirit.
“Those who’ve said that they’ll accept the verdict, they better accept it now,” she concluded. Islamabad High Court Bar Association President Arif Chaudhry distanced himself from the LHCBA demand, saying that this was Lahore Bar’s decision and the Islamabad Bar hasn’t taken any decision in this regard.
“We’ll chalk out our roadmap after consulting with the PBC and SCBA,” he said. He stressed the point that his bar will take its own decision and won’t be influenced by what other bars have decided. “Such a big decision taken by a single bar is not at all binding on us. IHCBA has its own priorities and if our bar feels the need to join them, we’ll do. However, so far no decision has been taken,” he said.
“I think that the bars are a collection of various people having different opinions. A bar does not entirely comprise of the People’s Party or PTI or PML-N. So, we have to take everybody on board, then we have to take a decision,” he said. When asked whether there is a possibility of reaching a consensus soon, he said that they have to take a decision either way.
“The Supreme Court hasn’t given a white-and-black decision. I still wonder how can we oppose the court decision. Once the court has decided the matter, we should accept it as it is,” he concluded. “The decision taken by LHCBA is theirs. We’ll decide our own. Till now, we haven’t received a resolution by any of our members,” said Sajjad Akbar Abbasi, president of the District Bar Association of Rawalpindi.
