Pakistan Lawyers

Source: jurist.law.pitt.edu --- 41 days ago
[JURIST] Pakistani Lawyers demanding that the government reinstate judges ousted last year [JURIST report] by former President Pervez Musharraf [JURIST news archive] clashed with police in Islamabad on Thursday, according to media reports. Television images showed police beating the Lawyers with batons outside Parliament, in a confrontation that reportedly began after an estimated 100 ...

Source: jurist.law.pitt.edu --- 1 hour ago
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Source: www.abajournal.com --- 42 days ago
Pakistani Lawyers clashed with riot police in Islamabad, as they protested the continued absence from the bench of dozens of appellate judge. They were ousted last year when former President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency and what many considered martial law. "Some Lawyers were beaten by officers in front of the parliament building, the first such incident since the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government came to power in March, live footage by the local broadcasters showed. The clashes started when a number of Lawyers tried to enter the adjacent Supreme Court building," writes Bloomberg, citing a report by the… ...

Source: www.pak-times.com --- 16 days ago
I was invited by British Law Society of England to visit Brussels as part of their delegation to attend a rule of law conference on ‘Pakistan and beyond’ organised by American Bar Association (ABA) on 25th September at Hilton (Brussels). Reaching Brussels airport in the morning, I caught a cab and reached Hilton at the [...] ...

Source: alaiwah.wordpress.com --- 41 days ago
Who would have thought on 8th March 2007 that General Musharrf’s grip on power could be seriously challenged? With confidence bordering on cockiness, his allies taunted the opposition parties that they would elect General Musharraf as President in uniform not once or twice but as long as it was expedient. The opposition was seemingly all [...] ...

Source: www.rediff.com --- 41 days ago
Unfazed by the demands from the estranged ally PML-N and the influential Lawyers movement, Pakistan's ruling PPP has decided against re-instating deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar M Chaudhry to his previous post and said he will have to work under the incumbent if re-appointed. ...

Source: www.latimes.com --- 37 days ago
Asif Ali Zardari has a shaky grip on power -- and perhaps reality. When Asif Ali Zardari, the new president of Pakistan, was fighting a corruption case in a British court last year, his Lawyers submitted documents arguing that he was too mentally and physically ill to appear. Two New York psychiatrists filed reports concluding that he suffered from dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and had serious memory and concentration problems. ...

Source: jurist.law.pitt.edu --- 24 days ago
[JURIST] Pakistani Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar swore in four previously ousted judges as new members of the country's Supreme Court Saturday, bringing the number of the judges on the reconstituted court to 29. Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan and Justice Nasirul Mulk were members of the top court when they were effectively dismissed in November last year under former President Pervez Musharraf's proclamation of emergency. Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany were previously members of the Sindh High Court and were ousted from their positions by the same measure. Given existing rules of seniority, Khan will succeed Dogar when the latter is required to leave office on March 21, 2009. In the wake of this latest reinstatement, only six of the pre-emergency Supreme Court justices remain unrestored, most notable among the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. After Saturday's reinstatements Law Minister Farooq H. Naek reiterated that under the Pakistan Constitution, only one Chief Justice could sit at any one time. The current Pakistan People's Party government has made no move to replace Dogar. From Pakistan, Dawn has local coverage. Three other judges ousted from the Pakistani Supreme Court were reinstated earlier this month. Critics of the government have described the piecemeal reinstatements as evidence of a "conspiracy" to undermine support for total reinstatement. Last week Lawyers in Islamaba ...

Source: www.charlotteobserver.com --- 23 days ago
An Afghan journalist detained for 11 months at the U.S. military base at Bagram alleged on Monday that his captors kicked him, forced him to stand barefoot in the snow and didn't allow him to sleep for days. Jawed Ahmad, who worked primarily for CTV, a Canadian television network, was handed over to Afghan authorities Sunday, said Capt. Christian Patterson, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. The U.S. designated him an "enemy combatant" this year and had accused him of having contact with Taliban leaders, including possessing their telephone numbers and video footage of them, according to a complaint filed by Ahmad's Lawyers in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The 21-year-old Ahmad said that while in prison, U.S. interrogators accused him of being a Taliban fighter, supplying weapons to the militants and of being an intelligence agent for Pakistan. "What they blamed me for was not true. If it was true they would not have released me," Ahmad told The Associated Press at a hotel in Kabul on Monday. Patterson said Ahmad, who is also known as Jojo Yazemi, was released because he was no longer considered a threat. Ahmad was detained Oct. 26, 2007, at a NATO base near the southern city of Kandahar. Ahmad said an American military public affairs officer called him to come to the base, and he was taken into custody in the U.S. Special Forces compound. During his Kandahar detention, Ahmad alleges he was kicked, that hi ...

Source: www.charlotteobserver.com --- 9 days ago
A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Tuesday to immediately release a small group of Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States. In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said it would be wrong for the Bush administration to continue holding the detainees, known as Uighurs, since they are no longer considered enemy combatants. The Uighurs have been in custody for almost seven years and have been cleared for release since 2004, but the government has not been able to find a country willing to take them in. Bush administration Lawyers argued Tuesday that Urbina did not have the authority to order the Uighurs released into the United States. Urbina called the detention unlawful saying the Constitution prohibits indefinite imprisonment without charges. The Uighurs have been at Guantanamo Bay, a naval prison in Cuba, since the U.S. military took custody of them in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001. Efforts by the Bush administration to find a home for the detainees has been complicated by fears in many countries of diplomatic reprisals by China. Five of the Uighur detainees were released in 2006 to Albania, which offered refuge over protests by the Chinese government. In Beijing Tuesday, before Urbina's ruling, the government demanded that all Uighurs held at Guantanamo be repatriated to China. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the Uighurs are suspected of being members of the East ...

Source: www.geo.tv --- 3 days ago
LAHORE: President Supreme Court Bar Association Aitzaz Ahsan has asked Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) not to create rifts among the bar members by taking action against them. Talking to media at SCBA office in Lahore he said that Lawyers would continue their struggle till the reinstatement of deposed Chief Justice Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry with his colleague judges. Aitzaz had arrived at Bar to submit nomination papers of Ali Ahmed Kurd as President in upcoming bar election scheduled on October 28. He said the PBC could not cancel the licenses of the bar members and added such action of the PBC was clear violation of Legal Practitioner and Bars Council Act. He said independence of judiciary is linked with the economic conditions of the country and added that foreign investors would invest in Pakistan only in the peace and calm atmosphere and added law and order situation could only be maintained by an independent judiciary. ...

Source: www.geo.tv --- 12 days ago
LAHORE: Federal Minister for Law Human Rights, Farooq H. Naek would meet Sarabjit Singh, an Indian facing execution in Pakistan for alleged spying, on Monday in jail. According to sources, Federal Law Minster would meet Sarabjit Singh, as India was demanding his release in the wake of bilateral talks. Federal law minister will review the case, as part of initiatives taken by two countries. Human right minister is also expected to meet women prisoners’ and listen their issues. He will also evaluate about provision of funds for providing legal aid to women who were unable to hire services of Lawyers due to lack of money. ...

Source: www.geo.tv --- 45 days ago
LAHORE: An emergency general body meeting of Lahore High Court Bar Association called to agitate oath of four deposed judges has been hit by a rumpus on Monday. According to Geo News, Lawyers chanted slogans against deposed judges who took oath again and Co-Chairman of Peoples Party Asif Zardari. The Lawyers leader of Pakistan Peoples Party Abid Saqi said that PPP and ANP had scarified lives for Lawyers movement whereas other parties are doing politics on the issue. The meeting has been suspended after the chaos. ...

Source: www.geo.tv --- 41 days ago
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Law, Farooq H. Naek Friday said that Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar had taken oath as the Chief Justice of Pakistan and he is the present CJ of the country. “The decision regarding appointment of Iftikhar Chaudhry as the Chief Justice will be taken once he comes back,” the Law Minister said while talking to media here outside the Supreme Court.ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Law, Farooq H. Naek Friday said the Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar had taken oath as the Chief Justice of Pakistan and he is the present CJ of the country. “The decision regarding appointment of Iftikhar Chaudhry as the Chief Justice will be taken once he comes back,” the Law Minister said while talking to media here outside the Supreme Court. “There can be one Chief Justice at a time,” he pointed out adding “if Iftikhar Chaudhry also takes oath in the present circumstances it will lead to another Constitutional crisis”. Farooq Naek said we told the Lawyers’ community that the issue cannot not be resolved by staging sit-ins and invited them to discuss the matter. “Those deposed judges who are interested in taking oath should contact us,” he said. He said our point of view was that the restoration of judges through executive order would not be a right way to resolve this issue. “We are not creating hurdles in the reinstatement of deposed judges and restoring the judges after the resignation of former president Musharraf,” the Law Minister main ...

Source: www.opendemocracy.net --- 23 days ago
Guy Aitchison (London, OK ): He's not happy about the Government's ongoing assault on rights and freedoms and explains why ahead of the Lords vote on the 42 days: "Partly, I'm angry that there is so little anger around me at what is being done to our society, supposedly in order to protect it," said the 76-year-old in an interview in Waterstone's magazine. "We have been taken to war under false pretences, and stripped of our civil rights in an atmosphere of panic. Our Lawyers don't take to the streets as they have done in Pakistan. "Our MPs allow themselves to be deluded by their own spin doctors, and end up believing their own propaganda." He added: "We haul our Foreign Secretary back from a mission to the Middle East so he can vote for 42 days' detention. "People call me an angry old man. Screw them. You don't have to be old to be angry about that. We've sacrificed our sovereignty to a so-called 'special relationship' which has nothing special about it except to ourselves." Hat-tip Craig Murray .   ...

Source: www.aina.org --- 35 days ago
Multan, Pakistan -- Jubilee Campaign's partner M. Joseph Francis heads the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) in Lahore, Pakistan. Francis, along with CLAAS Lawyers Akbar Munawar Durrani and Justin Gill, have represented a Christian family since late July whose young daughters, Saba, 13, and Aneela, 10, were kidnapped by a Muslim ...

Source: www.paklinks.com --- 30 days ago
Black coats of Pakistan are black sheep of society. They are just like Iftikhar and Aitezaz. One can imagine that if ordinary Lawyers are little devils and behave as the news mentions, than how big the devil their leader Aitezaz could be and how super devil their King Iftikhar Chaudhri could be. ... ...

Source: www.ipsnews.net --- 10 days ago
PESHAWAR, Oct 6 (IPS) - The current campaign against "honour" killings in Pakistan led by anti-death penalty NGOs has support from lawmakers and Lawyers pressing for modifications of Islamic law to prevent perpetrators from evading justice. ...

Source: pak1stanfirst.com --- 7 days ago
Amjad Malik — Member Pakistan First Think-Tank ( Amjad Malik, MA, LLM, is a Solicitor-Advocate Supreme Court of England, Life member of SCBA of Pakistan and currently a Vice chair of the Association of Pakistani Lawyers, UK ) Pakistan is, yet again, paying the price for flirting with the United States, who itself [...] ...