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PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council (KPBC) on Saturday called off its month-long strike in the province after the provincial government promulgated an ordinance to reverse the last year’s ‘controversial’ changes to the colonial era Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.
The bar council announced that the government had accepted its demand by promulgating the KP Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, which repealed the controversial changes to the civil law.
In a news release, the council said KPBC vice-chairman Shahid Raza Malik, executive committee’s chairman Shahid Riaz Barki and majority of members had examined the ordinance and decided to call off the strike.
It asked the government to lay the ordinance in the provincial assembly for enactment.
The KPBC urged the government to consult its and legal fraternity before making any changes to laws on alternate dispute resolution and enactment of any law in this regard and warned if that didn’t happen, any such move won’t be acceptable to lawyers.
Bar council calls off month-long strike
The KPBC had decided about the strike on Oct 16 and the lawyers began a five-day strike next day.
The strike was extended from time to time afterward.
The controversy had begun after the government enacted the Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Act on Oct 15, 2019. Through that Act, several changes were made to the colonial era CCP law with the government claiming that they would help provide speedy justice to litigants in cases of civil nature.
A general body of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council had decided on Jan 8 to start an indefinite strike against those amendments.
The lawyers boycotted courts for 23 days until Jan 30 when the government promulgated the KP Civil Law Amendment Ordinance, 2020, through which action on the controversial changes to the law was deferred until Apr 15, 2020. The ordinance lapsed after completing 90 days of its constitutional life.
The lawyers have been opposing those changes to the law on multiple grounds. The bar council claimed that those amendments abolished one forum of appeal against a civil judge’s verdict and declared that appeal would be filed with the high court instead of the district judge.
It said such amendments were not introduced in other provinces, so it was a discrimination against the people of KP.
The council said as the number of judges had not been increased, the high court would be further overburdened with those appeals.
The current ordinance was drafted after the representative committees of lawyers and government developed consensus. The committee members included law secretary Masood Ahmad, provincial advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt, senior advocate Mohammad Fahim Wali, Shahid Raza Malik, Shahid Riaz Burki, Abdul Halim Khan, Tanveer Ahmad Mughal, Shah Bros Khan and others.
A petition filed by Shahid Raza against the CCP amendments is pending with the high court.
The high court adjourned hearing into the case many times lately after the government promised the early promulgation of the ordinance.