In his speech at the graduation ceremony of Pakistan Law College Chief justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa called upon the legal fraternity to earn respect for their profession by bringing change in their attitude towards people and work hard while building up cases of their clients. The Chief Justice also advised them to enrich their knowledge of history mathematics and literature. Drawing a superb analogy between medical and legal professions, the top judge said that doctors treat the human body while lawyer treats the diseases of the society; a doctor relieves a patient from physical pain, while a lawyer fights for the rights of the people.
The wakeup call of the Chief Justice Supreme Court of Pakistan provides food for thought to the legal fraternity and sensitizes them towards their legal and moral responsibilities which they owe to the society groaning under the burden of social diseases. It is a time of introspection as to whether they are amicably and dedicatedly fulfilling these obligations. The answer is hardly in affirmative when one recollects the incidents of violence of lawyers against the policemen and locking the court rooms of judges of the lower judiciary.
Civil society groups and people had lent unflinching support to the lawyers in 2007 for the restoration of judges in the hope that the practitioners of this noble profession will hold the rights of the people supreme with their legal assistance to facilitate them in getting speedy and inexpensive justice according to the law of the land. But on the contrary, lawyers have raised their fee manifold making it absolutely unaffordable for their clients who belong to middle class. The frequent strikes on petty issues prolong the hearing of under trial cases. The recent lawyers’ strike against the proposed new judicial policy was not well received by the people. The clients’ glaring complaints pertain to the lack of hard work of their counsels which results in making out weak cases. In cases of service matters most of the lawyers compel the clients to provide them basic facts of the case in skillfully drafted form and did not take pain to draft it for their clients, even after receiving almost full amount of fee before submission to the Services Tribunal and higher judiciary. In this scenario, the aggrieved client has no option but change his counsel mid stream. There are also instances that in cases in which government departments are respondents, the concerned legal advisor of the department ask for ready made comments intelligently drafted by the administration of the department. He then just put his signature on it for submission to the court without adding relevant legal input and refinement of the draft comments received from the concerned department.
Command over other discipline of knowledge like history, mathematics and literature refines and buttresses the legal dimension of lawyers while pleading and contesting a case in the court of law. Hopefully, the legal fraternity will positively respond to the soul searching call of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and provide legal assistance to the people seeking speedy and inexpensive justice.
