Law on a rampage

After the tragic incident of death of two lawyers at the hands of the police in Daska, the whole province seems to have turned into an arena of protests by the lawyers community. The event took place in Daska but its reaction has been witnessed in all main cities of the province.
The ugly scenes of the masked lawyers beating the police up in full public view hardly speak of the dignity of the legal profession and its practitioners. After the government suspended the policemen involved in the heinous act of shooting the lawyers, the protests should have ended and all the destruction of private and public property ceased. But it hasn’t. Who will pay, if not the taxpayers, for the restoration of administrative offices and police kiosks torched and damaged by the practitioners of law?
Some office-bearers of district bar councils demanded the government to take extraordinary steps instead of following the usual legal practice to punish the accused SHO. For instance, the president of the Multan district bar council asked the authorities to try the accused in the military court, while the president of the Chakwal district bar wanted him tried by the anti-terrorism court. The idea behind such demands is to have the accused punished swiftly. Lawyers are usually averse to military courts. Why should they insist that the accused SHO be tried by these courts?
Moreover, when other segments of society occasionally stage protests, none of them is as aggressive and fearless as the protests by the lawyers. It is most unfortunate to observe those expected to go by the law to brazenly turn lawless and take the law into their own hands. Blocking busy intersections – the Kutchery road in Multan, Mall Road in Lahore – and causing inconvenience to citizens remotely concerned with the protests doesn’t win the lawyers public sympathy.
Neither does it look good when uniformed policemen are held by their collars. The lawyers’ community has to choose how it wants to be viewed by the public. If it aspires to gain public respect, it has to behave responsibly. For now one only hears that the ‘the lawyers became a big nuisance after the movement for the restoration of the judiciary’.
The lawyers’ movement for judiciary had its own pros and cons. The negative fallout of it we have had to face quite often. While the movement succeeded in restoring the judiciary, it made the lawyers too intransigent and defiant, much to the discomfort of their institution, the judiciary itself. There have been incidents when the lawyers locked up the courts, harassed and manhandled judges of the lower judiciary when decisions didn’t come out in their favour. The police frequently faced the wrath of the lawyers who beat up lowly policemen, mostly within the precincts of the courts.
Such disgraceful rowdyism by the lawyers’ community is unheard of in the civilised world. Why such antipathy between the lawyers and the police when the functions of both are so inextricably linked together?
However, if the lawyers were rallying to uphold the superiority of the law to apply it to the rich and the poor equitably, they would have gained immense public sympathy. But they have so far fought for their own rights, which have now begun to impinge on public freedom. It is common knowledge that the poor and the unconnected face the full force of the law, while the rich and affluent manage to get away with it – thanks to lawyers.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Lahore.
Email: pinecity@gmail.com