LAHORE - Pakistan Bar Council and Supreme Court Bar Association have offered the government their conditional support for legislation over the establishment of military courts that they cannot pursue policy of opposition for the sake of opposition due to the prevailing law and order situation in the country.
Both the bodies through their combined-decision have demanded the government to hand them over a draft of legislation, so that they could decide their future discourse. They have said that they wanted to know whether the law being passed is not against the fundamental rights of the citizens and according to the Constitution of Pakistan. It was decided in a meeting of Pakistan Bar Council and Supreme Court Bar Association held at Supreme Court Bar Association office at Lahore registry on Saturday.
The lawyers’ bodies said that they would challenge the draft before the Supreme Court if they found any violation of fundamental rights or contradiction to the Constitution of Pakistan.
“The prevailing law and order situation demands us to support the government fight against terrorists who are killing our innocent children,” said Vice-Chairman of Pakistan Bar Council Bhurhan Muazzam Malik while talking to the reporters at the bar office. Bhurhan said that they strongly condemned Peshawar incident which took all the political parties to unanimously pass a law to establish military courts. However, he said, the law should not be against the fundamental rights.
He said he did not read the draft personally but heard someone saying that the law would be passed for the period of two years and after the two years, it would automatically be ineffective. He said he also heard that the military courts would work as per request of the federal government.
Muazzam said that they would call All Pakistan Lawyers’ Convention after they found any violation of fundamental rights in the said draft.