An acrimonious situation precipitated at a joint general body meeting of the lawyers’ community when office-bearers from the Pakistan Bar council (KBA) and the Karachi Bar Associations (KBA) got embroiled in an altercation.

The incident took place when Karachi Bar Association (KBA) President Mehmood-ul-Hasan bitterly criticised the six members of the PBC executive committee for reportedly holding a meeting with the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar. Hasan said that they had deceived the lawyers’ community by holding this meeting.

In retaliation to these allegations, PBC Executive Committee Chairman Yasin Azad shouted and approached the dais where the KBA president was addressing the bar members, and pushed him aside. The situation turned highly volatile and lawyers started shouting slogans against each other’s representative bodies.

The situation was normalised after a while, however, after KBA Secretary-General Naeem Qureshi pacified the leaders, telling them that they were not there to make internal differences public. This, he said, was not the appropriate platform and such issues should be taken up in the committee room.

September the 23rd was declared as “Iftikhar Day” across the country by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). The KBA, along with the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) and the PBC also observed the day as scheduled. The deposed CJP, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry, was to address the bar but the programme was cancelled due to Saturday night’s blast in Islamabad which claimed several lives.

The lawyers’ movement has been suspended up until Eid, Qureshi said, adding that it would be back on track after Eidul Fitr.

The lawyer community, meanwhile, expressed apprehensions that those declared as “symbols of the movement” might enter into a deal with the government just like other judges of the superior and provincial courts had done. They said they were highly disappointed with the fact that several deposed judges had taken fresh oaths and had been reappointed. They vowed, however, that their movement for the independence of the judiciary would continue.

SHCBA President Rashid Razvi said that those who took fresh oath had betrayed the lawyers’ cause and would go down in history as traitors. He said that they had acted against the will of the lawyers and the public, and would never be forgiven.

Razvi recalled the government’s promise about the restoration of judges on May 14, 2008, and said that the notification issued presented a different draft. The usage of the term ‘reappointment,’ Razvi said, was highly objectionable and was not acceptable to the lawyer community.

He said that the government was trying to legitimize Musharraf’s unconstitutional and illegal steps of November 3. The present democratic government, he said, was successful in hatching a conspiracy against the judiciary, but “we the legal representatives must not be trapped in these tactics. United we stand and divided we fall. We have to take a firm stand to continue with our movement.” He said he was disappointed with the government’s renegade stance, and expressed fear that Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry would not be elevated to his original post.

PBC Executive Committee Chairman Yasin Azad was vocal in his speech. “Even if not a single judge remains with us, our movement for the independence of judiciary will still continue,” he promised. Azad, however, exhorted lawyers to not make their differences public because it would damage their movement.

Significantly, the lawyers termed the present period of Asif Ali Zardari as the “darkest chapter in the history of Pakistan” and said that he had “gone beyond Musharraf’s policy,” because while the latter was talking of a ‘minus-one’ formula, the former had, however, trapped entire judiciary.

Later, lawyers staged a rally within the city court premises, and shouted slogans against the present government, especially against Zardari who, they said, had acted against the cause of the lawyers.