- Sessions Court or homicidal arena?
A sudden unnatural death by firearms is the last event expected within the revered confines of a court of law, a chaotic, noisy but honourable place dispensing justice and relief to the aggrieved. Yes, senility may be considered a leading cause of litigants’ passing away because court cases drag on through entire lifetimes with the dubious legacy of mountains of legal documents passed to bankrupt heirs. But lately a section of lawyers, like its unruly ‘young’ brethren in the medical field, is taking the law in its own hands and resorting to unethical and sometimes criminal acts. Forcibly shutting down courtrooms and hospital emergency wards, violent rampages, hooliganism and scuffles, or battling it out with police, are now common modes of ‘protest’, resulting in wastage of litigant’s time and money, and in the doctors instance, patient’s deaths by lack of prompt treatment.
The ransacking of newly-built Multan Judicial Complex in December 2017 is a disgraceful example. Unfortunately, lawyers have taken the lawlessness game to an entirely new level. In the second recent incident of its kind, two lawyers were shot dead on Tuesday within Lahore’s Sessions Court by one of their fellow black coats. However, the whereabouts and identity of the suspect in lawyer’s garb, who gunned down an under-custody prisoner along with a Head Constable at the same premises on December 31, are still unknown. Such a double tragedy at a sensitive site can only be explained by criminal negligence of police guard, and an equally callous general disregard of security, extending to the court’s administration. That the killers were able to smuggle in firearms undetected twice is mind-boggling, demanding an urgent review of existing procedures, specialised training of security staff, and modern walk-through and detection equipment. Lawyers too should scrupulously observe security practices and desist from illegal acts, unworthy of highly educated professionals, and that includes facilitating escape of their clients following court arrest orders. At the present politically charged time, there is danger of the events of November 28, 1997 being repeated, which a united lawyer community must guard against.
