Unrepentant lawyers

Easy access to courts of justice and readily available healthcare facilities are two essential ingredients that make one's life good and going. But in the wake of attack on Lahore's Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) on Wednesday and doctors' go-slow strategy in reaction to it, the generality's life is going to be neither good nor going. The lawyers' representative bodies have announced boycott of court proceedings while doctors, being less strident in their stand, will observe a three-day slowdown. Nothing can be said with any degree of certainty how these confrontationist mindsets will play out in coming days mainly because of the fact that anything which could have gone wrong has gone wrong. If doctors provoked lawyers, lawyers could deliver a matching riposte, and not by attacking and ransacking a hospital. How come the police - which had the inkling that something dreadful was in the making - didn't do enough to intercept the assaulters? And how come the name of the prime minister's nephew is missing from the list of lawyers against whom FIRs have been registered? Regrettably, instead of admitting its failure, the government spokespersons are taking pains to shift the blame of lawyers' hooliganism onto political rival PML (N). Pity, the government is playing politics at as grim a tragedy as it was - four patients died because their life-supports were disrupted. A judicial commission, set up by the Supreme Court, may now investigate the incident and prescribe punishment. Thanks to the ubiquitous electronic media the millions across the country firsthand saw how men (and women) in black coats acted as if the PIC had come under an attack by aliens from another planet. Close your eyes and revisit the rampage in some detail. If one of the attackers brandished a gun and another struck the ventilators many other were pulling Punjab information minister Fayyazul Hasan Chauhan's hair. Circa 2019 and such a devilish theatre with over 250 lawyers on the stage, it is unbelievable. But it did happen. If success goes to your head, it makes you believe that you are more successful or powerful than you really are. It is therefore quite unfortunate that lawyers' historic march leading to restoration of the CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has turned them into a pressure group.

The lawyers should attack judges, lock courtroom, but no more now. This is no more an issue between the bar and the bench; this is an issue between the lawyers and people at large. Of course, the doctors who actually triggered this rampage must be held accountable by their departments. But what lawyers did is a crime against humanity; it rankles conscience of every thinking human being. Let them boycott courts, let them humiliate the doctors, but don't let them get away with what they did to Pakistan Institute of Cardiology, its doctors and patients on Wednesday. This being a dirty stain on their profession these lawyers are liable to forfeit their senior colleagues' sympathy. They should face the law and be dealt with accordingly. Be they others' 'Gullobutts' or their own 'chamchaas' they deserve no sympathy. Let this not be another Sahiwal acquittal saga. Last but not least, it was on Thursday that Islamabad High Court suspended the licence of IHCBA secretary-general Umair Baloch when he tried to force lawyers to leave the court. And, look at Baloch's audacity: he warned media persons, telling them, "if they [TV channels] continue with their one-sided coverage, I will bar you from entering the Islamabad High Court premises". The battle lines are drawn.