Lawyers pledge to oust convicted prime minister

RAWALPINDI: Lawyers from across the country on Saturday pledged to back the Supreme Court and jointly passed a resolution to launch a movement to bring down the government of “convicted Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani”.


The legal community took the decision in the All Pakistan Lawyers’ Convention (APLC) held under the auspices of the District Bar Association (DBA) Rawalpindi attended by lawyers from all over the country.


Lawyers raised slogans against President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and demanded the immediate resignation of the prime minister, adding that if he did not step down then the legal fraternity would take to the streets to force him out of the office.


In his address, PBC member and former President SCBA Hamid Khan declared a war by lawyers against President Zardari and the convicted Prime Minister Gilani. He appreciated the bold step taken by the country’s lawyers to hold a convention to show the power and unity of the legal community: “[The] legal community is fully united to backthe Supreme Court because the present government is continuously violating the apex court’s orders,” he maintained. He said that Gilani was not only committing contempt of court but was being abetted by Speaker National Assembly Fehmida Mirza who was also violating the apex court orders. “The speaker is not an institution higher than the Supreme Court.


The speaker cannot give any judgment after the apex court decision. She has so far not sent a reference to the Election Commission and she should also be held accountable,” he argued.

During his address, Senator Zafar Ali Shah said that President Asif Ali Zardari should obey the orders of the apex court to set a precedent for others. He said that the president — with the consultation of all parties — should select another prime minister.


In his address, former President SCBA Qazi Anwar said that lawyers throughout the country would show their street power. He claimed that the PPP government had openly violated Supreme Court orders and was continuously ridiculing them.

He said that both the president and convict prime minister had never been faithful to the judiciary, and that they had never wanted to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry along with the other judges because they all knew that the chief justice would prove to be corruption’s worst enemy. “Now we will get the orders of the apex court implemented with our power,” he vowed.

Mirpur Azad Kashmir Bar Association President Arshad Mehmood Malik said that it was a conspiracy to attack the chief justice of Azad Kashmir. He held that the present government did not want decisions to be taken on merit, and therefore it was continuously violating rules and regulations.

President LHCBA (Rawalpindi Bench) Shaikh Ahsan-ud-Din said that the present government had failed miserably to respect the judiciary: “A convict prime minister has no right to go on an official tour nor attend the National Assembly session but he is continuously taking all unconstitutional steps,” he said, further maintaining that lawyers across the country would take part in a ‘long march’ against the convicted prime minister.

Sanghar Bar Association (SBA) President Anwar Nazamani held that Asma Jahangir was a ‘traitor’ who was responsible for letting Husain Haqqani flee from the country. He added that some black sheep were present within the ranks of the legal fraternity, but would fail miserably in their nefarious attempts to denigrate a free judiciary.

President DBA Sajid Ilyas Bhatti said that a revolutionary movement had been launched against President Musharraf from Rawalpindi and now a similar movement would be started against Gilani from here. “The Rawalpindi Bar Association is the GHQ of all bar associations in the country; we will not rest till the removal of a convict prime minister,” he warned.

Similarly, office-bearers of all bar associations of the country spoke on the occasion and promised to begin a revolutionary movement against the government and vowed to oust the guilty prime minister.

Office bearers of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Punjab Bar Council (PBC), Sindh Bar Council (SBC), Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA), Multan Bar Association (MBA), Balochistan Bar Association (BBA), KPK Bar Association (KBA), Hyderabad Bar Association (HBA), Karachi Bar Association (KBA), Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA), Azad Kashmir Bar Association (AKBA), Mianwali Bar Association (MBA), Sanghar Bar Association (SBA) and several other bar associations also took part in the convention.