Members of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) have reached out to the Supreme Court (SC), seeking the removal of Law Minister Dr Farogh Naseem from the council because of his ministerial position.
PBC is an apex body of lawyers consisting of 23 members, who are elected from all provincial bar councils as well as the Islamabad Bar Council for five years. Currently, 12 are from Asma Jahangir Lawyers Group and 11 from the Hamid Khan Lawyers Group.
Naseem, who was elected as a PBC member from Sindh two years ago and later PBC vice chairman for one year, belongs to the Hamid Khan Lawyers Group.
The Asma Jehangir Group, which has a two-vote majority in the PBC House, demanded Naseem’s de-notification once before in September but Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan rejected the plea.
The group argued that once a lawyer held an office of profit he could not practice as a lawyer and his license should be suspended.
There are two previous judgments wherein even the prime minister’s adviser was not allowed to practice law, former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had barred Latif Khosa, when he was the PM’s adviser, from appearing in the Jamshed Dasti case.
Likewise, the 17-judge bench of the apex court did not allow senior lawyer Kamal Azfar to argue in the NRO case as he was also the PM’s adviser at the time.
A bar act rule states a lawyer cannot hold any other profitable office otherwise his license will be suspended.
