Lawyers boycott city courts against process of judges’ elevation

Karachi
The city courts were boycotted by lawyers representing the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) and the Malir Bar Association (MBA) on Thursday as a mark of protest against the authorities for not choosing senior and practising lawyers for elevation as high court judges.
The appeal to observe protest was made by the Sindh Bar Council (SBC) and was then endorsed by the lawyers of KBA, MBA and others bodies of lawyers. The lawyers’ representatives demanded to review the elevations and not to ignore senior and practicing lawyers.
It may be mentioned that the SBC’s executive committee chairman Abdul Razaq Mahar had had given the strike call a day earlier while presiding over a ‘Lawyers Representative Confer­ence: Ignorance of Sindh Advocates in Appointment as Judges” jointly organised by the High Court Bar Association (HCBA) and Hyderabad District Bar Association (HDBA) at the HCBA.
The courts remained closed due to the absence of lawyers and no detainees were brought for hearings.
However anti-terrorism courts kept functioning and in some cases of bail pleas and others, the subordinate courts also passed their rulings. Some cases were also heard in the court housed inside the premises of the Central prison.