Senior lawyers write open letter to SC, high court judges

ISLAMABAD: Through an open letter, senior lawyers have urged the judges of the Supreme Court and all high courts not to recognise the amendments proposed by the government aimed at controlling the judiciary.

Members of the Pakistan Bar Council, Riazat Ali Azad, President Islamabad High Court Bar Association, Abid Hassan Minto, Abid Saqi, Munir Ahmed Kakar, Bilal Hassan Minto, Salahuddin Ahmed and some 317 others from across the country wrote the open letter.

They said the proposed amendments are aimed at controlling the judges of the high courts and amputating the Supreme Court, replacing its severed limb with loyalists to be handpicked by those who have always wielded power.

They said an assault on country’s constitutional compact is being cloaked in the thin garb of arguments that are apparantly grounded in the supremacy of law, but cannot withstand even a slight intellectual scrutiny.

“We refuse to engage, in good faith, with any such ideas because they are not ideas rooted in good faith”, the lawyers said, adding that in any case, by design, no such chance for meaningful debate has been afforded and we are told to trust these ideas because they take root in the Charter of Democracy.

The lawyers maintained that some of these ideas were put to rest even during some of the darkest periods of dictatorship in Pakistan.

They said that they remember that this was only possible through the opposition of the very parties that now propagate them.

“The oath that you swore as judges of constitutional courts was a promise to protect the Constitution”, the lawyers wrote, adding that this proposed amendment emerged from the darkness of the night, from a pen that will not claim it.

They further said that those, who claim to be the elected representatives, say they have the “numbers” to pass the amendment even as they admit that they are unsure of its content.

They urged the judges of the constitutional courts not to recognise this proposed court if such a bill is passed.

“We urge those of you who may be handpicked to serve on it not to do so”, says the open letter, adding that complicity will be no defence of the constitution, rather it will amount to defacing it.

The lawyers recalled that the higher judiciary has, for many decades now, lent legitimacy to a sustained assault on the Constitution and on the democracy.

“We remember the pen that first carved “necessity” on the tombstone of our first Constituent Assembly”, the letter reads, adding that they remember how it prevented an elected government from completing its term.

“We remember, also, the last time a PCO was upheld and to be clear, we see the proposed court as no different: it will be a PCO Court, and those who take oath to serve on it will be PCO judges”, the layers wrote

“But we also remember how you, yourself, set history right by overturning that same decision”, the lawyers wrote.

They said, “Indeed, we remember all this no less because your own judgments now retell tales of how our courts failed us and this moment offers you a choice,” adding that the very fact that an attempt is being made to mutilate our courts speaks to the reality — “you are not yet, on the wrong side of history.”

“And so, we urge you: do not yield and when today’s history is recorded in tomorrow’s judgments, let it say that you were not complicit”, the open letter concluded.