Lawless lawyers
Lawyers were at it again. Taking the law into their own hands seems to have become an ongoing practice and their favourite pastime. Recently, they chose Faisalabad as the arena…
Hooliganism among lawyers
The Pakistani legal system has evolved into a dystopian nightmare, mired with corruption and nepotism, hijacked by political interests and utterly stagnated by a legal fraternity that operates less like…
Courts and panchayats
The people of Pakistan often use courts and the legal system to inflict misery upon their ‘enemies’ – and upon themselves. They resolve most of their disputes out of court,…
Rampaging lawyers
In most countries, one of the worst things you can do is to kill, hurt or even impede a police officer in the discharge of his duties. You can be…
No more military courts
Accprding to official sources, the government has decided to table a bill to extend the ‘exceptional’ use of military courts for another three years. Reportedly, the draft amendment would give…
Military courts: a mistake
On December 27, 2014, only 11 days after the APS attack in Peshawar, I wrote my weekly entry in this column under the title, ‘Military courts: a defence’. In the…
Lawyers vs the justice system
The Punjab Bar Council convened a summit of likeminded lawyers in Lahore on October 15, 2016. The participants of this convention included representatives of the Supreme Court Bar Association, the…
For the court to think about
What is the Panama case? Is it a media trial or a court trial? Is it the 2018 election campaign that has started prematurely? Where is the long-cherished norm of…
The high court of men
As Hilary Rodham Clinton stands waiting on the gates of the White House, ready to occupy a throne never before occupied by women, thoughtful people everywhere are recognising the tremendous…
Invisible lawyers
The image of a lawyer most widely held in the Pakistani imagination is monochromatic. And by this I do not mean that it is as characteristically black and white as…
