LAHORE, Sept 18: Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan said on Thursday the government had made substantial political gains by giving fresh oath to the judges.

“The general public, columnists and politicians already asking the lawyers to accept the change as negation would not serve anyone,” Mr Ahsan said while addressing the general house meeting of the Lahore High Court Bar Association.

He said the campaign for the judges’ restoration was passing through a critical juncture, where they needed to put their heart and soul to the next election of the SCBA president.

Mr Ahsan said the lawyers should form a team of young lawyers to launch a vigorous campaign for Ali Ahmad Kurd for the bar slot. The government, he said, would use all its resources like offering concessions and jobs to have someone else elected as the SCBA president.

He asked the lawyers to take great care in asking senior lawyers to vote for Kurd on Oct 27. He said the deposed judges, by accepting the offer of a fresh appointment, accepted that all steps Gen Musharraf (retired) took on Nov 3, including their removal, were correct.

He said the world was watching that deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was not restored. “He does not need restoration, he needs to be made functional,” Mr Ahsan corrected himself.

He said Justice Chaudhry would be visiting Europe and the US on invitation in November next and receiving honour. The international community would be naturally taking note of the fact that a chief justice unconstitutionally sacked by a dictator, could not be brought back to his office even by a democratic government. “And that moment may be embarrassing for the rulers,” he said.

The house was presided over by bar president Anwar Kamal, who among former SCBA president Hamid Khan, Pakistan Bar Council member Hafiz Abdul Rahman Ansari and others also spoke to the lawyers.

Mr Ahsan said though the re-appointed judges had left them, he would ask them to do justice without any fear. He said the lawyers’ movement had achieved major successes both on the judicial and the political fronts. He said it was a movement which got the July 20 decision of restoration of Justice Chaudhry made Pervez Musharraf take off his uniform and weakened his position which ultimately forced him out of power. A movement that brought the exiled leaders back to the country, and ensured election on Feb 18 in which, he added, the people voted to see the return of Justice Chaudhry to the judiciary.