Staff Reporter :
A group of Supreme Court lawyers on Tuesday demanded restarting of the regular activities in all courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, immediately in the interest of the livelihood of the 60,000 lawyers.
Tougher actions would be taken including hunger strike unto death in all Bar Associations of the country from July 12.
The lawyers were speakinbg in a press conference organized in the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) premises.
Advocate Momtaz Uddin Ahmed Mehedi, former Secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, read a written statement in the press conference on behalf of the lawyers’ group named ‘General Lawyers Council’.
The statement said, “The justice seekers have been deprived of their constitutional and fundamental rights, as the regular court activities have been suspended across the country since March 26 this year due to coronavirus pandemic. The crisis also pushed around 60,000 lawyers into a deep financial crisis as they were not able to conduct their cases regularly.”
“In the meantime, the Supreme Court has introduced the virtual judicial system. But 95 percent of the lawyers don’t support the virtual system and only five percent are getting the advantage of this system. That is why most of the lawyers of all Bar Associations of the country gave their objection to the Chief Justice over the virtual courts and they were observing different programs in meeting their demands,” also read the statement.
“So it is a clear speech from the ‘General Lawyers Council’ that regular courts activities should be introduced in all the courts of the country, including the Supreme Court, without any delay. Otherwise tougher actions would be observed including hunger strike unto death in all bar Associations of the country from July 12 to meet the demands,” read the statement.
Advocate Mamun Mahbub, Advocate Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Advocate Anwarul Haque, Advocate Nizamul Haque Mollah, Advocate Shah Mohammad Badol and Advocate Bakhtiar Hossain, among others, were also present in the press conference.
Earlier on June 21, the lawyers group submitted a petition to Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain for the same demand.
