Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa on Saturday said that the “tragic, unbelievable and shocking” attack by a group of lawyers on Punjab Institute of Cardiology is “an opportunity for introspection and self-accountability”.
“Our hearts and our minds reach out to the victims and their families,” said CJP Khosa, during a national conference in Islamabad on expeditious justice. “We hope and pray all concerned would like to uphold the values attached to the legal profession as well as the medical profession,” he said.
Justice Khosa said that he has always believed “divinity, law and medicine [to be] the noblest of professions”. He called on those employed in these professions to make “every effort to keep the nobility of such professions intact”.
He expressed hope that “better sense will prevail” not just in this particular incident and its aftermath but in the future as well. The chief justice then said he would refrain from saying more on the subject as the matter is sub judice before the Lahore High Court.
The chief justice in his address to the gathering spoke of the reforms brought about in the justice system fraught with delays over the eleven months. “We will not go down without a fight. Lord Almighty has given us an opportunity to serve our people and we shall not allow this opportunity to go to waste,” said Justice Khosa.
He said that even on January 18, during the full court reference for the outgoing chief justice, as he presented his future plans he had said: “This Baloch blood in me forces me to do something. Something that serves our well being and prosperity.”
The chief justice said that the biggest rebuke faced by the judiciary was what seemed like “the death of trial courts” in Pakistan. “There was no hope left. People were thinking of conceiving a different system altogether.