The rule of lawyers

 Hats off to Bakhtawar Bilal Sufi for having the courage although being himself a lawyer to point out the failure of lawyers to play their role  in the administration of justice in his article ‘Time to Introspect’ in daily Dawn newspaper. It is real fact that the lower judiciary is in a terrible shape after the lawyer’s movement. Lawyers having smelled power, encouraged by the former Chief justice of Supreme Court  Mr iftikhar Chaudhry started considering themselves above the law. One remembers the way they treated fellow lawyers Naeem Bokhari and Ahmed Raza Qasuri and assaulted Ministers Tariq Azeem and Farooq Sattar and when they were booked the honorable chief justice quashed the cases. Although the former chief justice used to take suo moto action on flimsy matters and was very sensitive about the dignity of superior court judges, he always looked the other way when lower court judges were being humiliated by the lawyers. Now lawyers are more found on strike than in courts on issues ranging from personal to international. They never use Sunday to strike for their noble cause. In addition to harassing judges they have started taking justice in their own hands by helping criminals escape after cancellation of their bails. Here, I am reminded of an abstract of my satirical article written three years back about the lower judiciary:

These courts follow the Rule Of Law(ers). Lawyers have developed an effective system of overseeing that the law(er) takes its own course, followed by the courts. A system of collective wisdom of judges, lawyers, court officials and the willing case parties is successfully administering justice. The courts although constitutionally report to the superior courts, they have dotted reporting relationship with the Bar Associations/Councils.

I hope that the lawyer’s community will rise to the occasion at this important juncture of our history and devote themselves to the rule of law and become soldiers of justice instead of any chief justice.