ABA Prez Calls for March on Washington to Support Pakistan Lawyers
Updated: In response to this week’s attack by the Pakistan government on the country’s judiciary and lawyers, the president of the American Bar Association is calling for fellow attorneys to march on Washington in sympathy with their beleaguered colleagues there.
“On Wednesday, November 14, the ABA is organizing a lawyers’ march in Washington, D.C., to support the rule of law and lawyers in Pakistan. At 11:30 a.m., lawyers will gather in the plaza in front of the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress before walking around the Supreme Court,” writes ABA President William H. Neukom in a press release today. The ABA is also encouraging and supporting similar efforts throughout the country.
“Over the last few days, brave Pakistani lawyers have dressed for work and headed to court knowing that they would be met by policemen’s batons and tear gas instead of their clients. These lawyers went to work anyway because of their belief in the rule of law,” Neukom continues.
“It is time for us to demonstrate that we share Pakistani lawyers’ commitment to justice. Please wear your black suit and join lawyers in Washington, D.C., or in your community as we walk to court on November 14. Together, we will show that Pakistan’s lawyers are not fighting alone.”
As detailed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, lawyers in black business suits were at the forefront of protests in Pakistan this week over Saturday’s suspension of the country’s constitution and firing of numerous appellate judges by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Reportedly, 3,000 Pakistan lawyers–25 percent of the country’s attorney roster–had been arrested and jailed by midweek. The country’s former top judge, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who presided over the supreme court until he was fired by Musharraf on Saturday, has declared the country to be in a constitutional crisis, and called on fellow lawyers to continue to fight for the restoration of the rule of law.
In addition to holding street demonstrations in Pakistan, many of those who have not yet been arrested reportedly are refusing to practice in front of the judges who replaced those fired by Musharraf.
Answering Neukom’s call with alacrity, about 20 lawyers from the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild marched on the federal courthouse in Minneapolis at noon today, reports the Minnesota Lawyer Blog.
Meanwhile, three bar associations representing New York City, the county and the state had already scheduled a rally at Manhattan’s Supreme Court, at 60 Centre Street, at 1 p.m. on Tuesday. Among the scheduled speakers are attorney Ali Ahsan, whose father, Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar, has been detained, apparently in solitary confinement, and is being denied access to a lawyer, reports New York Lawyer (reg. req.), in a reprint of a New York Law Journal article.
Bar associations throughout the U.S. and the U.K. have condemned Musharraf’s actions, and called for the restoration of the rule of law, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post. Among the latest additions to the list, the Hawaii State Bar Association today condemned the ongoing suspension of the Pakistan constitution, reports the Honolulu Advertiser.
Updated at 7:29 p.m., central time.
