THE Lawyers` Welfare and Protection Bill, 2023, is beyond comprehension. As per new legislation, anyone `fighting` with the lawyer will be jailed, and any officer `misbehaving` with the lawyer will be jailed, while a lawyer cannot be arrested.

Besides, lawyers and their families will get free treatment in hospitals and every company must hire a lawyer as its legal adviser. Isn`t this laughable? After the military, the legal fraternity, including the judiciary, is the most privileged class in society, and its members have repeatedly displayed their privilege with impunity. Several attacks on the police, on one of the hospitalsinLahore,and even onjudges, are only some examples of the violent acts by the lawyers.

Lawyers focus less on speedy trials and more on hooliganism and picking fights with the other arms of the state, calling these fights as fights for their rights.

When was the last time you saw a lawyer getting arrested? During protests, lawyers breach every law of the land, but no one holds them, or should I say no one can hold them, accountable for their deeds. Do they really need this protection consideringthe history of their (mis)conduct? Protecting such a violent and lawbreaking fraternity further is beyond imagination. The legal community should focus on pursuing the cases effectively without making their clients wait for years and become the torchbearers of justice, instead of asking for more privileges in the shape of such laws.

There are about three million cases pending with the courts currently. Shouldwe hire doctors and engineers to solve these cases now, for lawyers are more interestedin having strikes on one pretext or the other on petty matters? Mohammad Usama Lahore