LHCBA demands reference against three judges

LAHORE: A general house meeting of the Lahore High Court Bar Association adopted a resolution on Tuesday demanding presidential references against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Jawad S. Khwaja and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed for their alleged violation of the constitution in their judgment on the election of the president. Advocate Rashid Lodhi, an activist of PPP, moved the resolution which criticised the Supreme Court judgment directing the Election Commission to advance the date of presidential election by a week and hold it on July 30. Bar president Abid Saqi presented the resolution which was adopted with majority. Mr Saqi said the bar had always raised voice against both military and judicial dictators and for supremacy of the constitution. The house held that the presidential election conducted on the order of the Supreme Court had no sanctity of law or the constitution and the bar would not accept what it called a ‘dubious exercise’. It demanded that the chief election commissioner and all his provincial counterparts should immediately resign over their failure to hold the election on schedule given by the ECP. The house decided that the association would file references against the CJP and the other judges before the Supreme Judicial Council if the president failed to do so. Pakistan Bar Council vice-chairman Syed Kalbe Husain, Supreme Court Bar Association’s former president Asma Jahangir, LHCBA’s former president Ahmad Awais, Mian Jamil Akhtar and Rashid Lodhi spoke on the occasion and criticised the court’s verdict.