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Lawyers’ committee announces June 10 long march schedule

* Sacked CJP to participate in lawyers’ convention in Faisalabad today

By Masood Rehman

ISLAMABAD: The Joint Action and Implementation Committee of lawyers on Friday announced the schedule for a June 10 long march and a countrywide protest movement for the restoration of the sacked judges.

Talking to reporters after the committee’s meeting at the Supreme Court building, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Aitzaz Ahsan said June 10 would be “a historic day” for Pakistan.

He said the committee had finalised the strategy for the movement and formed sub-committees that would encourage students, traders, the civil society and the general population to join the lawyers’ movement and watch over the caravans and processions.

Sacked and retired judges would also participate in the long march, he said.

He said processions from Balochistan, Sukkar and Karachi, led by former Pakistan Bar Council vice chairman Ali Ahmed and the presidents of Sukkar and Karachi bar associations would reach Multan on June 10. The processions would leave Multan for Lahore on June 11 via Sahiwal and Okara where the judges would address the bar associations, he added.

On June 12, processions from Lahore, the NWFP and Azad Kashmir will leave for Islamabad and gather in front of Parliament House. He said the lawyers were fighting “the war of the masses” and that the slogan of the long march would be: “We are out to save the country-come and join us”.

Faisalabad: Lawyers and civil society activists will gather at the residence of sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry today (Saturday) and accompany him to Faisalabad to participate in a lawyers’ convention, Aitzaz said. Various caravans would join the chief justice’s cavalcade on the Islamabad-Lahore and the Pindi Bhattian-Faisalabad motorway, he added.

He said the Chaudhry would not make a speech during the journey, and that the sacked chief justice’s Faisalabad visit is not part of the long march.

Aitzaz said lawyers’ representatives had not been involved in the drafting of the Pakistan People’s Party’s proposed constitutional reforms package but would give their opinion if they were consulted. The draft would be shown to “independent judges” and the lawyers would accept it only if they do, he added.

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