Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) of Pakistan on Tuesday slammed the PTI for its criticism of the Supreme Court (SC) judges, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, PBC Vice Chairman Haroonur Rasheed said that those who had brought the PTI to power were also responsible for its ouster.
He lamented that military dictators had always stifled people’s voices.
He said that there was nothing wrong with airing one’s opinion over a court’s judgment. “But despite the fact that the apex court’s decision in the PTI’s intra-party elections (election symbol) case was as per the constitution, the party leaders started criticizing it,” he said, adding, “The SC had to deprive the PTI of its election symbol because it failed to hold its intra-party elections.”
Truth of the matter was that, he went on to say, that the party held its elections in a small village adjacent to Peshawar.
“We appeal to the PTI leaders and their lawyers not to indulge in mudslinging of judges.”
He alleged that the PTI had always tried to weaken the state institutions.
Speaking on the occasion, SCBA President Shahzad Shaukat accused the PTI of running a malicious campaign on social media against judges. “It is sad that instead of pointing out flaws in the apex court’s judgment, the party leaders have started pointing fingers at judges’ characters,” he said.
He was of the view that whenever courts pronounced decisions against the party, its leaders lost their temper and started hurling accusations at judiciary.
SCBA president vowed to make all possible efforts to stop this campaign aimed at maligning judges. “Let it be very clear that the entire legal fraternity will not let any hate campaign against judges,” he said categorically.
Shaukat urged media organizations’ heads to take steps to stop the airing of anti-judges comments.
He assured judges that lawyers stood by them. “It is so unfortunate that these days campaigns are run against judges,” he lamented.
PBC Executive Committee Chairman Hassan Raza Pasha, while referring to the PML-N, said that when the former prime minister and the former PTI chairman Imran Khan was called ‘innocent’ by a SC judge, the party leaders started trolling him. “Bear this thing in mind that a person is innocent until proven guilty,” he said, adding, “There was no conviction in the US cipher case. Still that party preferred to subject the judge to criticism.”
He, however, agreed with the notion that the PTI lawyers in the party’s election symbol case were not well prepared. “While filing a constitutional petition in the Peshawar High Court, the party failed to mention its other petitions pending in the Lahore High Court,” he said, adding, “What else courts can decide in such type of cases.”
Pasha, however, admitted that the PTI had the right to file a review appeal in the SC.
He was of the view that there were two aspects of the court’s verdict in the case: one was moral and the other legal. “From the moral point of view, PTI should have been given its election symbol of ‘bat,’ while from the legal point of view it is not entitled to its symbol because it did not hold the elections.”
Pasha also made it clear that lawyers would not allow any character assassination of Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa.
Responding to a question, he said there was hardly any election in which the Pakistan Army did not interfere. “The army even did not spare the general elections held in 1971,” he said, and added, “But at the same time, no political party never hesitates to seek the army’s support to come to power.”
All that lawyers, he added, wanted was action against those PTI leaders and lawyers, who called judges names.
Syed Qalb Hassan, former SCBA president, said that these days the entire world watched court proceedings live on television.