- Threatens to begin countrywide movement
LAHORE, April 23:The Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) on Saturday joined the opposition in demanding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation, threatening him with a countrywide movement “larger than the one in 2007 for the restoration of the judiciary” if he did not step down within seven days.
Speaking at a news conference in Lahore, senior leaders of the LHCBA said Prime Minister Nawaz did not have the moral right to stay in office after the Supreme Court verdict in the Panamagate case, which concluded that he and his family had failed to justify how they had accumulated their offshore assets.
In the split ruling announced on Thursday, three of the five judges who heard the case ordered a Joint Investigation Team probe into the accusations against the premier and his sons. The two senior-most judges on the bench, in their dissenting notes, ruled in favour of disqualifying Prime Minister Nawaz for failing to meet the constitutional requirement for honesty.
“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is morally obligated to resign after the Supreme Court verdict,” LHCBA President Chaudhry Zulfiqar told reporters at the news conference. “If he doesn’t step down voluntarily within seven days, we will launch a movement larger than the one that had led to Iftikhar Chaudhry’s reinstatement as the chief justice,” he warned.
“We lawyers have always struggled for the supremacy of law,” Zulfiqar said. “This time we are ready to lay down our lives to protect the country.”-Agencies
