• PTI-aligned lawyer leader claims their campaign will kick off with a convention in Lahore on Nov 30
• Rauf Atta says SCBA alone can issue call for such a movement

LAHORE / ISLAMABAD: PTI Senator and seasoned lawyer, Hamid Khan, on Monday called for a lawyers’ movement from Punjab on Nov 30 against the 26th constitutional amendment. However, Supreme Court Bar Association president Mian Muhammad Rauf Atta threw the apex body’s weight behind the constitutional bench formed under the 26th amendment and rejected the agitation called by the senior lawyer.

Hamid Khan, an ex-SCBA president, while addressing a presser in the Lahore High Court Bar Association auditorium, said the issue was directly related to lawyers, adding that it would be a lawyers’ movement, not political.

He said the movement would be kicked off at an all-Punjab lawyers’ representative convention being hosted by the LHCBA on Nov 30.

He claimed the legal fraternity had rejected the amendment as it would destroy the judicial system.

Commenting on the results of the recent SCBA election, Hamid Khan, who heads the Professional Group of lawyers, alleged interference and rigging on part of intelligence agencies. He claimed that his candidates for vice presidents — Khushal Khan from Sindh and Habib Qureshi from KP — were initially declared winners but defeated in the recount.

He also vowed to continue the struggle against the 26th amendment. “If they think we have fallen silent, they are mistaken,” he said.

Soon after Hamid Khan’s presser, the SCBA president in a statement declared, “I want to assert that this association cannot allow anyone to promote political agendas using the shoulders of legal fraternity.” Mr Atta said that the legal fraternity’s recommendations had been fully incorporated in the amendment, adding that the SCBA had full confidence in the establishment of the constitutional bench and would not allow anyone to undermine the integrity and disturb the working of the constitutional bench for petty political whims.

Describing Hamid Khan’s presser as akin to aligning with a specific political stance, he made it clear that his averments do not reflect the legal fraternity’s position. He regretted that Hamid Khan unduly criticised the legitimacy of the amendment passed by a democratically-elected parliament.

“I want to make it abundantly clear that authority to make a call for any lawyers strike / protest, or movement solely rests with the elected representatives of the legal fraternity, not with any unelected person, let alone any politically aligned personality such as Senator Hamid Khan,” he said.

Such calls are only meant to create division within the legal fraternity, Mr Atta said.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2024