I WOULD like to share my recent experience about a complaint against misconduct by advocates at the Sindh Bar Council (SBC), which turned out to be shockingly disappointing.

The council seems to act as a sanctuary for supporting lawyers involved in misconduct by evidently acting as something above the law. The presiding officer acted lil
Complainants are not heard at the council, while the accused advocate is rendered full unethical, technical and illegal support to move ahead his way, the reason seemingly being that they want to win their votes in the next elections.

In my case, the accused lawyer played foul by not submitting to the court 40 annexures with his written statement to which the complainant objected, but the presiding officer remarked that those were not needed by him.

How on earth was he going to exercise justice without those annexures which formed the basis of the case; and how can the complainant be placed in the right position to rebut the written statement without them? Such being the case, the presiding officer acted illegally in suppressing evidence and dismissed my plaint. But the story doesn`t end here. I noted that before the date of hearing, the secretary of the council had issued an antedated directive to the police that I, along with my non-party attendant, was harassing the accused advocates. No written order was pronounced nor present in the court record.

However, it was noted in the record that the matter be forwarded to the executive committee for adjudication and the same was also ordered by the presiding officer in the previous hearing.

On top of it, the secretary council acted in excess of his powers by issuing an illegal, partisan and biased directive to the police against the complainant.

I appeal to the chief justice and the champions of judiciary to bring good reforms in the bar councils and teach ethics to lawyers.

MazharButt Karachi