Islamabad:
Political leaders, human rights representatives and journalists at a Round Table conference in Islamabad announced on Thursday the launch of the national movement against the 26th constitutional amendment and trained a committee to campaign for the movement.
The participants of the round table described the 26th amendment as a serious threat to the independence of the judiciary and the Constitution. Senior lawyer Hamid Khan told the conference that a national convention will be held in Lahore on October 11 to mobilize support.
During the event, a committee was trained under the chairmanship of the lawyer for the main lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan to direct the campaign for the national lawyer movement against the 26th amendment.
The other members of the committee include Hamid Khan, Sardar Latif Khosa, Ali Ahmed Kurd, Qazi Anwar, Salahuddin Ahmed, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Justice (Retd) Shahid Jamil, Munir in Malik and Shaista Khosa.
Addressing the round table, Iman Mazari warned that justice had disappeared from the courts and the parliament, therefore, the struggle must now continue to cross a public movement. “Otherwise, it will be our collective disappearance,” she said.
Mazari also protested the restrictions imposed by the High Court of Islamabad (IHC) which prevented lawyers and journalists from registering videos, as well as the refusal of access to courts to lawyers in Pakistan Tehreek-E-insaf (PTI).
Senator Hamid Khan qualified the 26th amendment to undermine the independence of the judiciary. “The public mandate has been stolen, the results of the elections were not respected-it is a mockery of democracy,” he said.
The judge (RETD) Shahid Jamil warned that the rule of law no longer existed in the country and urged lawyers to oppose the 26th amendment, saying: “If they do not do so, the very existence of the judiciary will be in danger.”
Lawyer Ahsan stressed that the history of lawyers’ movements was full of sacrifices and that the country again needed such a fight. Lawyer Ali Zafar criticized the government for using the judiciary as a political tool. “The Constitution was thrown into the trash.”
Salman Akram Raja has described the last two and a half years as “the worst years of oppression and tyranny”, highlighting the trials of ordinary citizens in military courts as violations of fundamental rights.
The president of the PTI, the lawyer Gohar Ali Khan, said that the 26th amendment laid a major obstacle to an independent judicial power and promised the support of the party to the lawyer movement.
At the end of the conference, Khosa presented a resolution summarizing the mission of the movement: “except the country, protecting the homeland and safeguarding journalism”.
