ISLAMABAD, May 1: Anticipating that the Pakistan Bar Council’s executive committee would signal the launch of a fresh lawyers’ movement to keep up the pressure for the reinstatement of deposed judges, a group of five members have requisitioned a council’s meeting in full strength to consider the protest as a threat to parliamentary democracy.

Piloted by PPP Senator Sardar Mohammad Latif Khan Khosa, five members of the 22-member PBC has requisitioned the session of the council on urgent basis in Islamabad to discuss a response to the latest negotiations among the coalition partners on the restoration of the judges, who were sent home soon after the proclamation of November 3 emergency by President Pervez Musharraf as the then army chief.

Interestingly, the requisition came with a specific time and date — at 11am on Saturday — to pre-empt the scheduled meeting of the PBC’s executive committee the same day.

According to the rules, the PBC vice-chairman is duty bound to call the meeting of the council whenever five or more of its members requisition such meetings. Other signatories of the requisition are advocates Pervez Inayat Malik, Yasin Azad, Dr Khalid Ranjha and Mian Israrul Haq.

But to outsmart them, the executive committee has rescheduled its meeting a day ahead of the PBC session by re- fixing it for Friday evening.

One of the signatory of the requisition on condition of anonymity conceded to Dawn about difference of opinion regarding modalities being adopted by the legal fraternity on the restoration of deposed judges and the manner in which prevailing judicial controversy was being handled by the leaders of the lawyers’ community.

Presided over by Rasheed A. Razvi, the executive committee meeting will be attended by PBC’s vice-chairman Sayed Rehman, Hamid Khan, Kazim Khan, Ali Ahmed Kurd and Qazi Anwar.

The executive committee usually comprises seven members out of the 22-member PBC, but since one of its members Kalb-e-Hasan has been elevated as judge of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and other Farooq H. Naek is the law minister, the committee is practically left with five members.

“We are ready for the final round and already on a do or die mission,” Rasheed A. Razvi warned while talking to Dawn, but expressed the hope that whatever decision the executive committee came out with would also be carried through by the entire PBC to defeat the wishes of those who requisitioned its session.

Referring to their (five-member group) point of view that protest demonstrations would amount to threatening the parliamentary democracy, the chairman said protests were the most civilised weapon to register one’s perspective in any democratic society.

On 30-day deadline as enunciated under the Bhurban declaration for the reinstatement of the deposed judges, he said, full opportunity had already been afforded to the political parties as well as the parliament to settle the judges’ issue but both had missed it.

“The destiny of the entire nation, country and the judges is in the hands of two individuals rather than the parliament where the restoration of judges issue was not discussed even for a single day,” he observed, adding deposed judges should be restored within the month of May as three-month vacation of the courts would start from June next and any delay would further complicate the issue.

Our Correspondent from Attock adds: Lawyers are ready and committed to resuming their countrywide movement to press the government for reinstatement of deposed judges as per the Murree declaration.

District Bar Association (DBA) Attock president Rana Afsar Ali Khan and Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) member Sheikh Ahsanuddin said in a statement issued here on Thursday.

“We are ready to pay any sacrifice for the countrywide struggle as the lawyers have the street power and will demolish all obstruction to achieve their lofty objective,” they said.

According to them, lawyers have no political agenda and they are fighting only for the rule of law.

They claimed that a National Assembly resolution was sufficient to reinstate the judges, and that the Supreme Court decision declaring their removal as “past and closed chapter” had no legal validity.

They said: “We want all the deposed judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, restored under Murree Declaration and PPP’s co-chairman Asif Zardari is also a signatory of it.”