RAWALPINDI, Nov 26: Lawyers’ protests got a new life after their top leaders joined them after their release, making it clear that the agitation against the state of emergency and ouster of judges would continue despite all odds.

It was also conveyed to the district bar that the Pakistan Bar Council had announced to boycott the forthcoming general elections and all lawyers who had submitted nomination papers under the Wookla Mahaaz should take their papers back.

The lawyers at the District Bar Association (DBA) gave a warm welcome to the president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA), Sardar Asmatullah, general secretary LHCBA, Sajid Ilyas Bhatti, senior lawyer Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui and Ghulam Mustafa Kundwal, after they were released from different courts of Punjab on Saturday.

These lawyers were taken to the bar hall in a procession amid loud anti-Musharraf slogans and all unconstitutional actions of the regime. Lawyers condemned the imprisonment of their senior colleagues, who were kept incommunicado and treated harshly, just to teach them a lesson for raising their voice for the rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution.

At the general body meeting, the released lawyers castigated the removal of superior court judges, media curbs and the provisional constitutional order (PCO). They resolved to work for the independence of the judiciary and for the rule of law with more vigour and persistence, as no chastisement could scare them anymore.

Sardar Asmatullah, speaking to the charged up lawyers, said that it was due to the post March 9 movement of lawyers, for the independence of the judiciary, that had made the return of exiled leaders possible. “We challenged the dictator the way no opposition party did and helped (the) superior judiciary decide the chief justice’s case on merit and according to their conscience,” the president LHCBA underlined.

It is high time that both Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif supported the cause of restoration of the deposed judges, who had lost their jobs with a whimsical stroke of pen.

He also urged the legal fraternity that the majority of the deposed judges had come out to welcome the lawyers, not their colleague, Chief Justice Chaudhry, when he visited different bar associations in the country before July 20. Now it was the lawyers turn to stand up for the cause of the deposed judges, he added.

Lawyers also took out a rally in the court premises and chanted slogans against the regime’s unconstitutional steps and vowed to carry on their struggle for the independence of the judiciary and media freedom.

Later, they also participated in a token hunger strike and observed a one-hour boycott of court proceedings. Their boycott of the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench, continued as they were not appearing before the judges who had taken oaths under the PCO.