Last week, the Lahore High Court (LHC) premises became a battleground with lawyers and police pitched against each other after the protesting lawyers tried to enter the court breaking the gates. The police placed barriers and barbed wire in the corridor to stop them from going inside and resorted to baton charge, use of tear-gas and water cannons to disperse the protesting lawyers. There were several injuries and many of the lawyers were taken to the hospitals for treatment.
The situation had arisen in response to the Chief Justice LHC’s orders to the police to arrest Sher Zaman Qureshi, high court bar association president in Multan, and produce him in a contempt of court case. The lawyer was accused of misbehaving with Justice Qasim Khan of LHC’s Multan Bench, closing the door of a courtroom and ripping off his nameplate from the wall outside his office.
Though the lawyers are not on the roads at the moment, the threat of the situation worsening again is still there as the high court’s arrest orders have not been taken back.
The scuffle between lawyers and judges at the lower court level were common but now such instances are also being observed at the superior courts. It is important to look at the roots of the problem and discuss the dynamics of the relations between the bar and the bench.
Maryam S. Khan, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development & Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) points out there are multiple reasons for the current confrontation between the bar and the bench. To begin with, she says, there is nothing exceptional about the ‘rift’ between the two institutions. "Historically, the bar has maintained a certain level of autonomy from the judiciary, with various elements in the former often stridently opposing the latter’s collaboration with military dictatorships.
"In that sense, the bar-bench convergence during the Lawyers’ Movement was the real exception, and once the unanimity of cause was gone, the cohesion within this legal complex steadily fragmented."
She says as for the latest manifestation of ‘wukala gardi’ in the imbroglio involving the Chief Justice of the LHC, "there are differing views. Certainly, lawyers’ violence has angered parts of the legal ‘intelligentsia’."
Against this backdrop, the role of lawyers’ representative bodies becomes quite imperative. There is a feeling that the office-bearers do not take notice of the unwanted behaviour of their members, most probably to keep them (their prospective voters) on their side.
Aftab Bajwa, Secretary, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), hopes the issue will be resolved soon "because representatives of the bar and bench are working on a code of conduct and proper mechanisms to diffuse such situations". He says it is hoped that both the parties involved will abide by this code. "In case a dispute arises at the teshil level, it will be immediately taken up by the body set up at the tehsil level and if it doesn’t work, it would go to the district level and so on.
"This weekend we have called a nationwide convention of lawyers where we will discuss the issue at length and try and form a consensus on how to end violence and evolve acceptable methods of dispute resolution," says Bajwa, hinting at evolving a system to ensure punishments to delinquent members but without going into the details.
One wonders why are hooliganism and violence becoming the hallmarks of lawyers’ empowerment and strengthening of the institution, and what encourages more lawyers to join their ranks.
According to Khan, "Although the larger legal fraternity recognises that this kind of ‘hooliganism’ existed before -- recall the storming of the Supreme Court in the late 1990s -- many lawyers argue that the problem has worsened as a legacy of the Lawyers’ Movement. They speculate this could be a result of incompetent lawyers rising to prominence on the basis of their fidelity to the Movement, or because lawyers have generally become emboldened about agitating against judges (a troubling byproduct of the PCO judges’ controversy), or both."
Waqqas Mir, a lawyer based in Lahore, says "the show of muscle by lawyers mostly pays off at the level of lower courts where the transfer of judges on the demand of the respective bars is quite common. When this happens, the lawyers feel vindicated and in a way get a sanction to adopt this habit to pressure judges in future as well.
"I think all of us are guilty for not condemning this and keeping a silence for so long. That is why this thing is getting big."
Mir says to identify the causes behind such behaviour "one has to go to the roots. Unfortunately, the standard of [legal] education is not good and the adoption of an ethical code by the practicing lawyers is not a priority. The fact that there are no consequences and the bar does not act against those guilty of hooliganism further promotes such behaviour."
Khan prefers to look at the larger picture. "Be that as it may, there are bigger structural and class issues at stake. On a broad level, both the bar and the bench have played a politics of institutional self-preservation for decades, evading any kind of accountability that would make them responsive to the ordinary litigants whom they are meant to serve.
"Neither has there been any commitment to a familiar litany of much-needed reforms that both judges and elite lawyers enjoy only paying lip service to -- including access to quality legal education and training, rigorous standard-setting for entrance into the bar, transparent processes for judicial recruitment, and redistribution of resources to the neglected "ranks" of lawyers and judges who form the bedrock of the justice system."
Mir strongly believes that though there can be debate or criticism about the conduct of the bench or the bar, there shall not be any compromise on certain things such as the "functioning of the court". "The court room is sacred and has to be so. So when a court summons someone that person shall appear and there shall be no question of disobeying the orders."
Khan, however, points at another interesting fact. "It is quite telling that support for the chief justice [LHC] comes mainly from an exclusive class of lawyers not accustomed to the rigours of either the everyday suffering of litigants or the gaping class divide within the legal complex."
Mir suggests that "to improve the situation pressure groups shall be there within the bodies of lawyers who can initiate a debate on adoption of civilised means to register their complaints." Besides, he says, "there shall be input from the general public and segments of the society in this context because self-regulation of the profession is not working at all. A more inclusive regulatory mechanism can be a means to bring about the required change."
A former office-bearer of LHCBA echoes the sentiments of many lawyers when he says that he is in "a very tricky situation" and "cannot support any of the two parties openly because both are adamant to set an example this time".
He shares that "it’s a fact that many lawyers come to the courts with high expectations but without any preparation, and get frustrated when they do not get rulings of their choice. Many of them assume that selective lawyers are getting preferential treatment and, therefore, turn against the judges".
He says the trend in lower courts is that numbers matter more than the arguments and the party bringing more lawyers has an advantage. "In certain cases, like those involving property, resourceful litigants hire multiple lawyers with required expertise and leave hardly any competent ones for the opponents to engage. This numerical strength phenomenon is a major factor in this context," he concludes.